


Odyssey Outbound

by Azamandus



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:28:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28570026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azamandus/pseuds/Azamandus
Relationships: Jake Pendleton, Xila
Comments: 5
Kudos: 2





	1. Birth of a legend

The singularity skip drive was developed in 2865, it allowed for a ship to tunnel through Null-space. The drive was created by Doctor Ivar Jorgenson, his work in quantum mechanics finally cracked interspace travel and allowed Earth corp to begin the expansion. In 2905 earth corp found out we weren't alone in the universe, an earth corp scout ship encountered the first Null-space concordance. These are nexus points where Null-space creates a junction, upon finding the first junction the scoutship reported an alien structure at the center of the nexus, investigating the structure proved once and for all, that humans weren't the only ones out here.

Tanya Reeves reported the structure was a waystop, her first encounter with the races aboard the waystation were to start the first interspace war. 47 other intelligent species have been cataloged since the end of the interspace war in 2920, the year I was born. My parents were miners living on an asteroid processing station in orbit of Luna. Jake Pendleton age 12, 2932 my parents learned that I had been chosen to be sent off to advanced training. I didn't know what was happening till the earth corp goons came and hauled me away, turns out I had shown sought after skills in my singularity piloting courses and earth corp had plans for me. I was to become, another cog in the corporate wheel.

For the next 6 years of my life, I ate, slept and breathed corporate training in singularity piloting and mechanics. They were brutal times, those that failed were punished. I had lost friends to the earth corp monster. That faceless juggernaut of corporate might that ran our lives. 2938 the year I graduated training, and the year the Freeplanets Union declared war on Earth corp. I was being sent to Luna, to the skip drive manufacturing hub that built skip drive haulers. I was never to make it there, my destiny lay in an unforeseen direction, and it was all due to the interference of the Freeplanets Union. The shuttle I was on was jumped by Freeplanets raiders, they freed me from the yoke of oppression and cast me adrift in a world bigger than I had ever known.

The raiders dropped me at a waystation in the nexus. I was given some creds, a survival suit and a backpack full of useless junk. I had trouble right away, some Yvics decided to try to steal from the earth kid. I ended up having to fight my way out of a public rest house. The Yvics followed me, bent on stealing my meager backpack full of junk.They cornered me in an alley and things weren't looking good for me, when a shadow flashed among them. I heard screams and watched as a tall thin figure seemed to dance from the shadows and brutally beat down each of those Yvic toads. I stood there until the last one fell, then watched the figure approach me, I thought then, I was next.

Grev looked like a tall thin teddy bear up close, but once you spotted the sharp claws and teeth all thoughts of teddy bears went out the window. Grev stuck out his right hand, and helped me up from the road."Why were the grots after you?" I shook my head and stared at him. I had no clue at the time what he had just said, but it had sounded like a question. "I think they wanted to take my backpack, but thanks for stopping them."

Grev growled something else and gestured me to follow him. I didn't know what else to do, so I followed the guy, thinking he'd be nice to have around, if anymore of those toads came after me. He led me across the station to the nexus port. We walked into an entertainment complex and right up to a bar. I stood there looking stupid I guess, and the being behind the bar started laughing. Grev didn't laugh, he reached into his jacket and pulled out a cube, having never seen a bounty cube before, it drew my attention.

Grev placed it on the bar top, and activated the holoproj in it. The bartenders face paled, and he pointed to one of the private entertainment rooms, towards the back of the place. I had no idea things were about to go from peaceful, to violence on a scale I couldn't have imagined just the day before, when my life had been run by the corp. Grev went to the door, and knocked. When the door opened, he moved like lightning, the punch threw the being inside, right to the floor.

I watched him move, he was greased lightning, unbelievably fast. A brutal knee to the groin of the next attacker, was followed by a smash to the face with both hands, that sent those attackers to the floor.Then I heard a sound that struck fear in people, weapons fire. Grev moved, his hand flew to the inside of his jacket and a boxy shaped something was in his hand. Grev fired, and I heard what a Quiller sounded like for the first time in my life, it sounded like a sort of loud huffing that sprayed a cloud of titanium tipped poisoned darts like a shotgun into the room.

The whole thing from beginning to end hadn't taken two minutes, four bodies lay on the floor inside the room,three of them breathing and one quite dead. About that time station law showed up, weapons drawn they approached and questioned Grev. He produced the Bounty cube, and station law backed off, Grev pulled a projscanner from his leg holster, and scanned the dead target. His bounty taken care of, he reached into his pocket and tossed the bartender a handful of creds. I followed, not knowing what else to do, and we stopped outside."Why in the Maw are you still following me kid?" Again I had no clue what he was saying, but he sounded upset."I guess communications is going to be an issue, better find a translator so we can clear this up, before you follow me into somewhere you shouldn't."

He took me by the hand and towed me behind him till we found a translator parlor. He shoved me down in a seat, and went to the counter."Hey do you know what species that kid is, and if you do can you speak that gabble he keeps talking in?" The attendant looked at me and nodded. "Ok, so ask him why he's still following me." The guy behind the counter asked me, and I told him where I came from someone saves your life you owe him a life debt, till you have repaid the act in kind. The parlor attendant explained to Grev what I had said and the Yachi let out a growl, and turned black eyes on me."What the nine pits of hell am I supposed to do with a tag a long, ask him if he has any useful skills."

The attendant asked me and I told him I was a pilot, and was also trained in Singularity drive mechanics, that got Grevs attention, he looked at me with slitted eyes, then growled something at the attendant. “Get him an injection of translator microbes, and I’ll pay for it, make sure he can speak Yachi, and passable trade speak.” The attendant came at me with what looked like a weapon, but he explained it was full of microbes that would let me understand the languages being spoken, or at least some of them. I steeled myself for pain,but it was nothing but a tiny prick, it did leave me feeling a little sick,but on the whole being able to understand what others were saying was a big plus.

“You able to understand me kid?” I looked at Grev and nodded. “Yeah I think so.” My words made him glare at the attendant.”Did you have to give him the southern accent, they all sound like backwater idiots on the southern continent?!” “It was the only microbes we had in stock sir.” Grev growled again then paid the parlor attendant.”So you say you’re a pilot, ever seen the inside of a real ship or are you just out of training?” I didn’t know what to say really, he likely wasn’t looking for some wet behind the ears kid, but someone who knew his way around the ways.”I can see by your reaction to the question your a fresh off the lot flyer ain’t you?” What could I say except the honest truth. 

“Yep Freeplanets raiders liberated me from Earth corp slavery, and set me free here.” Grev made a disgusted sound and told me to follow him to docking bay 748, when we got there I was introduced to the Odyssey. I’d never seen a biomechanoid starship before, Odyssey was a marvel a meld of mechanical and living tissue a ship capable of traversing singularity space that was much more than anything, I’d ever known existed before then. “Kid this is Gretcha, she and I go way back. Gretcha, meet your new pilot.” A tuberous stalk descended from the ceiling, and the bulb on the end opened.”It looks like something you swept up off the street, can it actually nav, or will I be training it to do that to?” Grev growled and slammed a fist down on a panel in front of him.”Listen to me you insolent heap of biomechna, He’s a pilot yep fresh out of the box,but we need a replacement and you will bond with him understand me!”

I can’t say bonding had ever been explained to me, where I came from the ships nav systems were comps, fully interactive AI systems able to navigate Null-space, Nothing in my training had prepared me to bond with an alien biomechanoid ship.”So guess we should get this over with, sit in the nav couch, I’ll begin the bonding when were done you’ll have full synaptic link to my systems. I hope you’re ready to experience reality from 5 dimensions.”

The hood extruded to engulf my head from the back of the couch and I felt the links tap into the back of my neck, the pain of the first contact left me whimpering, but Odyssey had linked to me. I could feel the control bulb now attached to the back of my neck, where it would remain the rest of my life. *Linkage complete, can you understand me Jake?*   
I stared up at the ceiling bulb, and felt sick to my stomach. 

* I guess so, uh are you in my brain now?* I heard her laugh for the first time,Gretcha had a real sense of humor, she explained what had just happened, then ran me through the first few control checks I would need to learn to navigate the ways through Null-space. Being linked to a biomechanical starship proved enlightening, she had systems I’d never imagined existed, some time in the past her creators had solved the jump sickness issues earth was still compensating for with drugs.*What do you do to compensate for acceleration sickness?* My brain was still trying to come to grips with being connected to a whole new body.

*Accel sickness, pfft solved that eons ago, the creators knew about it, I have compensation modules that allow me to stimulate your pleasure centers to counteract that.* Having a direct mind tap allowed us to communicate without words, way faster then physical computations *So is my knowledge of Null-space complete enough to navigate by?* I could hear her giggling in the back of my mind.*Your brain has the right functions but those internal nav points are so limited, your world must have just discovered the ways, you have so little mapped,we shall fix that now.*

I threw up when she downloaded her nav matrix into my brain. Grev shouted about me making a mess in his ship, then kicked a panel in the cockpit.”It’s your fault isn’t it!” Gretcha laughed she loved her owner but his race was incapable of bonding their brains had the wrong synaptic routes for navigation, though they were the most skilled gunners in the known universe.*You have weapons?* My question made her laugh again. 

*I have a complete battery of offensive and defensive capability, my creators equipped me with combat systems, because they knew there were races out here who would always be looking to steal from us, I know the ships you are used to have no such ability, we shall need to practice insystem combat maneuvers.* Combat training, I proved to be a natural, I could feel the gravity streams like a second skin, Gretcha and I flowed together and I got to experience her for the first time, intimate doesn’t begin to explain what happens between a pilot and a biomechanical starship, no sexual experience comes close to it, those pleasure center stimulation's that keep me from being disgustingly sick were my first ever experiences. 

*Grev wants to initiate you into the guild now, he says you need to decouch and go to the common room.* I left the haze of pleasure that enshrouded me, and straightened my clothes. *Tell him be right there, got to hit the waste processor.* I was still getting used to a toilet that wrapped around your lower body and evacuated you, but it was still a new experience then. Grev stared at me when I walked in,growled in his chest, and had me hold out my right arm “This is the mark of the bounty hunters guild, your rank is apprentice right now, it marks you for life, you willing to take the mark?” His question hung in the air between us,I knew this would forever change the direction my life was going but I nodded.”Ready master.” Grev’s eyes widened he looked down at his own arm, and something passed across his face.”I haven’t reached the rank of master yet Jake,the trials for master bounty hunter are long and complex won’t get there for another 5 cycles.”

I nodded again, Grev reached for the tattoo gun, and put the mark on me that would control the rest of my life, a mark of devotion to a guild old as the universe.”Right, welcome to the guild Jake we’ll need to register at the next guild house we come to,but as of now you qualify for all guild compensation,which means you can access any guild controlled station or planetary complex we own.”

“So where to boss?” Grev grinned and slapped me on the shoulder.”Nav us to Haven 359 and we’ll take care of your registration into the guild.” Haven 359 circles a G type yellow star in the Cepilac alpha star system, the guild complex there is by most standards considered a place full of desperadoes,gamblers and quickdraws hair trigger reflexes and short tempers are the rule of the day. 359 guild house is no exception, rough is what I would call the place, but everyone there seemed to know Grev.

“You back again brother Grev, that’s twice in three cycles to what do we owe the pleasure of your odious company?” The six eyed Octopoid wrapped his tentacle around Grevs outstretched right arm.”You noxious blurv, how have you been?” I could see from the interactions there was more going on then just what I could see, but I wasn’t up on guild protocol yet.”Been better, you heard about that dust up on Meridia?” Grev nodded then turned to me.”Here to register an apprentice.” I heard a stunned inhalation and six eyestalks turned to gaze at me in amazement.

“Grev you’ve never taken an apprentice, not in the last 237 cycles not once, what’s this being got that none of the others have ever had?” Grev made a strange sound then went to the comp in the corner, he shoved his tattooed arm into a slot on the comp and stated his full name,the machine churned and came to life. “Guildy Grev Altacca, why have you accessed the archive?” “I am here to register an apprentice, designation to follow.” Grev turned to me and had me put my arm with the new tattoo in the machine.”State your name and it will record you into the guild rolls.” I did as directed and felt a warmth on my arm as my tattoo was recorded into the device.

“Welcome apprentice Jake Pendelton, you are the first of your species to register with the guild you will receive a guild law manual in a few minutes, with the regulations we follow in the pursuit of our targets in service to the counsel.” I looked over at Grev he had a sly grin on his teddy bear face, but he slapped me on the back and nodded to the Blurv.”Moggi you fat grub, set my apprentice up with his law book.” I moved to the counter and the Blurv handed me the guide, a set of intricate laws that governed the guild, it wasn’t very thick, I opened it and there were 15 declarations in it, only 15 laws that the guild followed. I knew then that my life had changed.

“Well how do you feel apprentice?” We had walked out of the guild house and were heading towards the entertainment district, the streets were full of locals. I stared at Grev and answered. “Guess I’m feeling alright, so what does an apprentice in the bounty hunters guild do actually?” Grev let out one of those barks of his and I knew he was having a good laugh. “Well kid first thing I’ll have to teach you is about the laws, we follow them like a religion local lawkeepers and the intergal police both know we hunt for the counsel. Every time you apply for a bounty you’ll secure a bounty cube like the one you saw me use.”

I nodded and followed him into one of the pubs, the place seemed kind of busy, heads turned as we came through the door,and the conversation stilled. I heard someone cough then everything just started up again. Grev slipped through the crowd and made it to the bar.”Tender I’ll have a quantum slinger, and get my new apprentice whatever he wants.” I leaned on the bar next to him, and stared at the cute Nylith tending bar. Xila turned those pale purple eyes of hers on me and started laughing.”Hey Yachi, you sure this kids old enough to consume?” 

Grev growled something under his breath then told the Nylith she should probably find that out for herself. My face turned bright red, from the implications I got, Grev had just told the bar tender to sex me, if she was so bothered by my young appearance. Xila burst out laughing, her laugh was a bright happy sound in a room full of deadly looks,and desperate conversation. From a gambling table toward the back I heard someone call Grevs name and saw a rotund Jibashi gesture him over.

“I’ll be right back Jake, Xila will get you a drink, I have to go see what Theffi wants.” I watched him move through the crowd, like a shark through the water, people parted and he just slid through, turning back to the cute tender I was surprised to see a drink get put down in front of me.”You will probably like this, though I can’t promise you won’t get totally ripped up drinking it.” I put the glass to my lips, and swallowed my first taste of chali, the stuff is refined from a fungus that has some very interesting properties, like making your brain float out of your body it’s also used as a well an aphrodisiac, the stuff gets you whacked then makes you horny.

I drank it down and felt my head start to float away.”Hey your species ok with chali then? Everything alright, you should be feeling the first floating feeling am I right?” I stared at her cute face and must have grinned stupidly.”I see, yep normal reactions so far, now then I gotta tell you there’s some other side effects, you might drop into a depressed stupor,you could get extremely giddy, or you might be one of those races the fungus makes.” Xila didn’t get to finish that conversation because under the effects of chali, I leaned across the bar and kissed her right on her bright blue lips. I don’t remember much after that, but I woke up in her bed, with my com buzzing in my ear.”Jake Grev says playtime is over, we have a bounty to collect.”


	2. The apprentice

*Why didn’t you just use the link?* *Because the annoying sound of the com was sure to wake you.* I finally made it to the boarding ramp and heard Grev inside grousing about me and my weird antics delaying launch.The entrance cycled open and I stared at Grevs furry face.”Kid you look like Yvic dung, and I wasn’t able to find you when I was done with my business, feel like telling me where you ended up?” I felt stupid, but I’d only been free for a few days, I sat there in the pilot couch and explained the whole thing to him.

“You and the sexy bar tender have a good time then?” “My face must have reddened but he let it drop.”Kid don’t be ashamed Chali does that to plenty of other races, the stuff just gives me a serious buzz, you’ll get used to it, now time to earn your pay, nav us to Thalia serpenti, Theffi gave me a job last night.”The transit time to that double helix star system meant we would be in null space for the next 43 hours. I set the transit point and naved us into the ways.* Was it good Jake?* I could feel Gretcha brushing through my memories of the previous night’s sexual encounter.* Well isn’t that interesting I didn’t know Xila’s race were natural empaths,maybe that’s why they make such good bartenders,you have to be able to judge your clients, do you like her?* I felt kind of strange talking to Gretcha about my sex life but after I thought about it,what we had was likely pretty much the same as what Xila and I had done together.* I’m sort of jealous Jake Your new girlfriend is a self contained individual, and I’m just the ship you fly around in, sometimes my life gets so boring.*

I sat in the couch thinking about Gretcha’s feelings, I hadn’t given much thought to her before indulging in my sexual antics.* Hey uh...you know you’re with me all the time,did you not feel what I was experiencing?* I could feel a strange sensation through the link. *Jake I would never intrude on your outside life unless invited to do so by my pilot,it’s just not done that way!* I grinned and slid a little deeper into our linkage.*You sure you didn’t feel what Xila was doing to me?* I could feel something like a bashfulness blaze across my consciousness then she hesitantly admitted I’d been broadcasting rather loudly what I was feeling she had hastily shut out those feelings.

*So next time you have permission to open the linkage fully, after everything we have experienced together it’s not like you’ll see anything new.* I could feel the eyestalk above me gazing down at me.*Jake....none of my pilots has ever been open like that with me before,many races regard bioships as invasive when it comes to our,well our ways of moderating null space accel sickness, and they never give much thought to our feelings,I am sort of shy around outside minds,are you sure Xila being an empath won’t uh, get angry if she senses my presence in your love making?* At that time I wasn’t even sure about the Nylith girl and I, but she had deeply kissed me when we parted back at 359. The rest of the transit to Thalia was taken up with Grevs training schedule, I started learning the weapons and tactics I would be required to know in pursuit of the criminals we would be hunting.The latest was a terrorist who had unleashed a Trilidium explosive in the transit terminal on Delicron station in the Gul star system.

“So let’s see what sort of weapons best suit your personal style Jake, take a look at the wall does anything draw you to it?” I didn’t know what the hell Grev was going on about but learned that certain weapons had an affinity to them, Grev told me there were weapon masters who studied just one weapon all of their lives, who were wrecking machines in combat, if I ever faced such a person. I had better be ready to fight for my life. I nodded and pulled down a strange pole like blade.Grevs eyes widened.”You sure?” I nodded something told me my selection wasn’t one he had thought I would choose.”Kid I’ve never seen anyone handle that Tribladed Halberd since I picked it up on Starakis, that thing isn’t easy to use, I tried it when I picked it up,still doesn’t feel right in my hands,never gained any affinity for it,it talking to you?” I looked at Grev like he was brain dribbling or something, but the blade felt right in my hands. He took me through the first few defensive movements with pole weapons and just sat watching.

“Jake that thing flows for you doesn’t it?” I nodded.He grinned and replied.”Well hand to hand is taken care of I guess, now let’s find you a ranged weapon,most criminals tend to keep things at ranged, unless you catch them up close.” I sat down in front of the weapons wall and Grev started showing me the basic stuff. I didn’t see anything that felt like the halberd resting across my legs. I think we must have gone through about 50 weapons before he opened the third locker. I could feel something drawing me to that locker, Grev reached in and started sorting things out onto the deck. I moved closer, the strange bracer had drawn my attention.”Hey Grev, what’s this thing called?” I picked up the Kinetic pulse bracer and slipped it on my right arm, it fit like a glove. Grev turned from pulling things out of the locker and smiled that sharp toothed smile of his.

“You sure have an eye for the exotic kid, now about that choice of yours, that’s a Kinetic pulse weapon it stores up energy as you move.” I flexed, the bracer felt right, like an old friend on my arm.”So what does it do?” My question made the Yachi smile again.”Kid it concentrates Kinetic energy into a pulse, when you want to use it flex your arm a few times to charge it, depress your wrist down aiming at your target, it will release a pulse burst of kinetic energy at your target, I never picked it up, it once belonged to my masters master, the things been gathering dust in the locker for years.” Grev set up a set of hard targets, I spent the next two cycles learning how to use my new weapons.”Alright, enough practice for now.” I turned to Grev he was grinning ear to ear for some reason.

I went back to my room, and could feel Gretcha watching me closely.*What’s up?* My thought made her withdraw a bit.*Jake...I could feel well something a bit different coming from you while you were training with Grev, anything you want to talk about?* I could feel her concern for me as I sat down on my bed.*I don’t know if I can describe what I was feeling Gretcha, it was like when I am using my weapons, my mind focuses, senses become sharper, kind of feels...I...I don’t know really just like they make me more then I was before I guess.* I could feel her processing that information, then I felt her mental sigh. *That feeling must be what the Yachi call the affinity, frankly I always thought Grev was full of crap, he has tried to explain it to me for cycles, I never could grasp what he was trying to tell me but your mind feels like it’s going through changes.*

I lay down on my bed and stared up at Gretcha’s eyestalk.*It feels like something inside me has awakened from a long sleep, I read the old earth histories that said humans were violent back in the day, they even had three world wars.* Gretcha seemed like she was interested in listening to my story so I went on.*Humans used to be some bad asses, now a days were pretty peaceful I guess, but when I picked up those weapons back there, something inside me felt like it opened It’s eyes and stared into my soul.* At the mention of having a soul, we got involved in a long conversation about souls, I think she was frightened by what she could feel inside my brain, now that I had weapons.

I felt hungry after awhile, and went to the galley. I entered and stopped, Grev sat in his usual spot and was cleaning his weapons. When I stepped in, he looked up and gave me one of those toothy grins.”So kid, you feeling different?” I sat down and thought about it.”Grev, Gretcha and I were discussing that, maybe you can tell me better.” He laughed and put his Quiller down.”Feels like you just woke up from a long sleep, that’s your instincts waking up Jake, sounds to me like you’re a natural kid.” I frowned at him, instincts felt violent.”Does it get better?” Grev nodded at me.”Once you awaken them, instincts keep you alive in this business kid, it’s what makes a bounty hunter a force to be reckoned with in the whirlwind of combat, it’s what gives us the edge when your facing down the scum of the galaxy in pursuit of your bounties.”

*Coming up on transition.* Gretcha broke in. I grabbed a tube of carbo paste and ran for the couch. We came out at the transit point and I stared at the systems crazy stars, I’d never heard tell of green stars before.*You going to answer that Jake?* I came back to myself and heard the planetary control officer asking for my clearance code, I quickly replied and was told to head to a docking bay on the western continent of the fourth planet in the system. Thalia serpenti was  
A rough wild backwater planet, a place full of desperadoes,slingers,and hard bitten outbackers. Soon as we touched down, Grev suited up,strapping on his quiller, he opened one of the storage lockers and threw a shoulder loop of grenades over his shoulder.

Don’t look at me like I’m crazy kid, I’ve been here before,the local wildlife sometimes needs discouraging,that’s why I packed the grenades.” I shook my head and went to get my own weapons. As we cleared the access port,I got my first look at the dust ball we had landed on. “What kind of wildlife could live on a rock like this one?” My question stopped Grev in his tracks. “The mean kind kid.” Grev went on to explain exactly what was under that drifting sand out there and I had to picture it, bigger then the biggest sharks of earth, and twice as nasty.They tunneled under the sand, then came at you from below. I thought maybe Grev was just trying to give me the business,scare the new kid into having nightmares, that is until we ran into one on the way to the closest station town. Grev had rented a hovercar at the landing port and we’d been cruising along for the last two cycles just watching the local plant life going by, when I started hearing a pinging noise coming from the dash. Grev started cursing and swerving the hovercar. Weaving and jinking it, he yelled at me to pull a grenade from the belt and get ready to throw when the thing came up. I started getting nervous, then I spotted a huge fin cutting through the sand behind us,I swallowed in a dry mouth and watched the fin gaining on us.

“Kid your only gonna get one shot at this, them things make mince out of us if you don’t get them first!”Great just what I needed a pep talk about how if I screwed up we were likely going to die.I adjusted my grip on the grenade and tensed as we cleared a small rise, I glanced down and we were doing nearly 300 KPH and the thing was still gaining on us. Suddenly Grev stopped the hovercar dead in our tracks, we were sitting on some kind of rock spire he’d driven right up on.The thing came blasting out of the sand,huge jaws,rows and rows of sharp teeth on a body shaped like a missile it all seemed to slow down,I drew back and hurled the grenade,the huge jaws opened wide,Grev was howling at me to throw.

I watched the grenade sailing through the air,the monster was nearly on us,then it felt like I had been slapped by the biggest hand ever,the hovercar lurched and shook violently as the grenade went off,bits and bloody pieces of land shark rained down over the area,the carcass shuddered in its death throes and settled.There were bloody gobbets of flesh all over me and bright orange splatters of alien shark blood. I guess I must have been in shock,for a few seconds there as my brain caught up to what had been occurring.”Hey kid you did alright there, you okay?” I sat there Just nodding,unable to speak the adrenaline still pumping through my veins, trying to calm down, from a life or death experience like that, sort of makes you a bit tongue tied at least in my case it did.

“Hey there’s a local bounty on those damned things, jump out and grab a few teeth, so you can collect it.” I got out and slowly made my way down to the dead land sharks body, I searched and located some of the things teeth embedded in one of the local cactus's. I pulled out a couple and looked at them,sharp didn’t begin to describe them,they were serrated, and needle like,I gulped and glanced back at the body of the dead monster trying to figure out how a living creature could move that fast under the ground, I walked closer and examined it, all along its body were these pit like depressions, when I asked Grev explained. “From what I understand them things use subsonic vibrations from the pits on their skin to push themselves through the soil, that one looks like it’s pretty old so I wouldn’t take to long out there picking at pieces,likely there are younger ones who will be nosing around once they don’t hear the old bull there making his noise.” I quickly got back in the hovercar and we continued on. “Listen kid, when we get to town I want you to keep your eyes open and watch my back,this place doesn’t take kindly to strangers if you know what I mean.”

The town was called Desert Flats, the sign read population 327 as we drove past it. Grev rolled up on the local wildlife station office and we turned in the bounty on the land shark we’d collected. I walked in behind Grev and listened to him talking to the station rep.”Ran into a big one out near the gap coming from the landing port, what’s the bounty at now a days?” The shriveled looking being inside the cage, hacked off a cough and spat in a spittoon.”Where’s the teeth?” I reached into my pocket and pulled one out. He put his hand through the access grill and waited,I handed it to him and he pulled out a size chart of some kind,slapping it down on the chart he moved it along until he found a size match.

The old guy let out a snicker, and grinned.”Looks like someone done put paid to that old alpha out in the badlands there, good job deserves a good days pay, here ya go kid.” I reached for the cred stick he held out and Grev smiled.”Thanks old timer, can you direct me to the rolling rock canteen?” The old beings face squinched up, in disgust.”Yeah I can,but that place ain’t fit for outsiders,that’s a rough bunch usually miners, and riggers hanging out there,you sure you wanna take a kid in there?”

Grev’s face went stern,he reached into his armor jacket and pulled out the bounty cube, the old guy swallowed when Grev laid it on the counter and activated it.”You seen this varmint around lately anywhere?” The old guy nodded,I could see sweat popping out on his forehead.”You after that guy then, yeah he hangs around,rolled in here about a month ago,and him and his boys bought a place out past the boarding house just outside the stockyards, you can’t miss it has that big fancy hovercar parked out in front of it,bright pink,with electric blue pin stripes down the sides of it.”

Grev nodded and put the cube back in his jacket.”There any local law here abouts I should be made aware of?”Grev asked. “Nah, closest law is in Gravel Gap about 200 klicks east of here, you looking to go after that scum right now?”The old guy replied. Grev just nodded and gestured me to proceed him out the door. When we got to the rental I stared at the amount on the cred stick.”There’s 2000 creds on here!” “Yeah so maybe you can afford to buy some better clothes, and pick you up a suit of armor, this business is deadly kid, you best learn that fast.” I nodded as we drove through town, people were staring at us, I got the feeling they didn’t really like strangers around here. 

We pulled up to a diner, and Grev got out. I followed him in to sit at the counter, a waitress came out of the back and smiled at us.”What ya want cutie?” Grev looked up from the menu in front of him and he just stared at the female Yachi. She had lavender eyes that seemed to pull my master into them.He stammered at her, sounding like someone my age when he spoke.”Uh...me and the kid here been living on carbo paste and protein sticks for a while now,got any fresh Jank steaks?” The females eyes never left Grevs face.”I sure do,hey cooky get these gents a couple of them there steaks we got at the butchers this morning,now what would you two like to drink?”

We sat at the counter eating, I kept seeing Grev glancing at the female with an intense look. Every once in a while she would look up, and he would look away. I got the feeling there was more going on then I could see, but we finished our meal and paid. Grev’s eyes were glued to her even as we headed back to the hovercar. We sat in silence for a few minutes, I could tell Grev was trying to process something. He finally cleared his throat and I giggled. That probably wasn’t what he was wanting to hear right about then, so I stifled it with my hand.”Kid it’s been nigh on 8 solar cycles since I saw a female of my species anywhere, haven’t been back to the homeworld in longer then that,sorry she kinda caught me off guard.”

I sat back in my seat and just grinned.”So you got the hots for that waitress?” The hovercar swerved nearly colliding with three pedestrians walking on the hardpan sidewalk.”Boy do you know what your saying?!” I grinned I had never seen Grev at odd ends with himself before.”No but it looks like you wanna go back there and screw her brains out right this second.” Grev pulled to the side of the road,and stopped the hovercar. “Listen good you wet behind the ears apprentice of mine,that there female is on a whole other wave length when it comes to the likes of me,she’d probably turn me down cold so” “I think your scared to ask her?”

Grevs right eye started twitching, he cocked his head to the side and stared coldly at me.”You got a smart mouth for a kid fresh out of the box,don’t you! Care to put some money on the outcome of my asking that there lady back there that kind of personnel question?” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the cred stick I’d just gotten from the shark bounty.”I got 2K says the lady back there wants to jump in the sack with you in a heartbeat if you ask her. Grev spat into his hand and I followed suit.”Bargained,witnessed and done when we get done catching these here terrorists your going to eat those words!” We clasped hands and sealed the deal.


	3. Show down

I crept along behind Grev, my skin felt like it was crawling, we’d parked the hovercar about a block back from where we were, and had come the remaining distance on foot.”Hold it right there kid.” I looked at Grev and he was pointing at the building up ahead.”You take the right side and I’ll kick in the front door, them bastards try bolting it’s your job to put paid to their tickets got it?” I swallowed, my throat was dry as desert sand,and I had this itch between my shoulder blades it felt like someone was getting ready to put a blade in me.”Right then...heading to the side door what’s our cue to hit these scum?”

Grev smiled that Sharp toothed grin of his and and cracked his knuckles.”When you hear the shooting start you’ll know.” I nodded and slunk behind the loud ugly hovercar, and around the side of the house,I could see Grev getting ready, his fur looked like it was standing on end, I could see the glint in his eyes as he headed for the front door. Next thing I knew all hell broke loose, I aimed at the side door and concentrated on doing my job, a green spattered body smashed out through a side window I heard the glass shatter and time seemed to slow down to a crawl, the yvics body hit the ground hard there was a hole in it’s chest I could have put both fists into. 

I could hear Grevs high pitched battle scream inside,that sound sent shivers through me as the mortally injured yvic splashed down I saw the side door open, a gray skinned creature stood in the doorway. He ratcheted a slide action on his weapon and I leveled the bracer at the bastard, my reflexes were quicker then that terrorist piece of shits, I beat him to the shot. My adrenaline started pumping as I blasted that son of a bitch back into the hallway he’d just stepped out of. I could hear Grev in there cursing and swearing at those scum sucking gits,every so often I heard gun fire from inside, my eyes must have been drawn to the flashes of movement in there so that was why I almost lost my head to a grenade thrown from the house. I rolled behind the hovercar at the last second and watched the front of the vehicle evaporate in a cloud of flame and high grade polymer shards.

I rolled out behind the smoking vehicle and charged the grenade thrower, she was a wiry looking critter with a big bushy tail, I started laughing it looked like a damned squirrel on steroids,she was reaching for a side arm when my blade came down and cleaved her reaching hand from her arm.The bloody hand tumbled through the air, as I shouldered her into the side of the house as hard as I could.She let out a grunt as she bounced off the wall hard,I drove my knee into her stomach and watched her pitch over and crumple into a heap at my feet. Just as I was getting my bearings, a bolt of electric blue energy buzzed through my vision. I felt a burning pain lance through the side of my face and blood, my blood sprayed into my left eye,reeling from the blast, my eyes watering and blurry, I rolled to the side as more shots followed the first.

A red haze washed over me,time seemed to slow down to a crawl, I could see the hulking figure step through the door, I knew then I was gonna die, a crack of sound echoed I thought for a second it was me that had been shot but as the bloody haze from the head wound I’d taken got brushed away on my sleeve, I saw the headless stump of a body collapse and tumble out of the doorway. My brain was buzzing,pain crept across my senses and made me puke my guts all over the ground,wasting the lunch I’d just eaten in a disgusting pile of vomit. Grev stepped out,and leaned over the cooling corpse at his feet.”Well looks like you got your first scar kid, that will teach you to keep your mind on what yer doing, or else your new life ain’t gonna last to long. Now come here, let me take a look at that before you go and get it infected already.”

Grev wasn’t very understanding but he knew enough medical to get me patched up. The inside of the house looked like a war zone had happened in there, bits and pieces of people scattered through the building like so many busted dolls.”You know it’s been a good while since I had to work this hard kid, I don’t like what I am seeing on these here bodies, starting to look like we got us the members of some kind of terrorist cult,see how all of them have these tattoos, face over there has his on the forehead,that bitch there had one on her arm before I blew it off,and that Squizzle outsides got one on her shoulder well at least that’s a good identifying mark for the lawmen, councils gonna want to have pics to confirm our bounties so we can get paid,here take some pics of that garbage outside while I get the rest in the front room.”

Grev tossed me a holocam and I nearly vomited again the stench of the dead made my stomach rebel a second time that day, the one villain I’d cut the hand off started moving, I growled under my breath and kicked her hard as I could,the steel toed boots I’d taken to wearing made a distinctive thud in the pit of her stomach as I kicked her against the house wall.”You try anything funny,and I’m gonna open you up like a can of cheap pasta and spill your guts all over the lawn understand?” The groan of pain told me I wouldn’t be seeing anymore trouble from that one, the Yvic that had been blown out the window was still breathing to,but just barely.

I heard another shot from inside the house then heard Grev holler,”Guess that one still had some life in him,tried to gut me like a fish, any of them varmints out there so much as move funny you ventilate them understand kid?” I hollered back that two of the scum out here were still kicking what was the word on taking them alive? I could hear Grev growling about damned terrorists, then he came back out walked past me and shot both of the ones laying there on the ground right in the head, I stared at his face. Cold hearted killer didn’t begin to describe what I’d just witnessed.“Only bounty we collect is dead bounties, learned me along time ago you leave scumbags alive,they come back to haunt you in unpleasant ways got that!”

I gulped, I could feel his eyes on me,then he turned away and started collecting the bodies into a pile on the lawn.”Hey make yourself useful and give me a hand to get these here scum ready for the undertaker." I nodded, and started dragging out corpses when they were neatly piled outside he checked the local directory and called the undertakers to come clean up the garbage. We never stopped at the diner on the way back, I glanced over at Grev and he kept rubbing at a scar on his left arm as he drove.”Hey kid, about back there, maybe I need to explain why I did what I did back there, it all started way back ten solar cycles ago I used to have a partner, he got sloppy one time to many and we ended up shooting it out with a bunch of smugglers, they had taken hostages and well my old partner had him a soft spot for trying to take varmints like that in alive.” I sat there and listened to Grev explain why he had done what he had done,they had lost three hostages, a local lawman, and a bounty hunter by the time Grev had put paid to the smugglers hold up in a hotel out in Delta secondus, I could feel Grevs eyes on me all the way back to the port he ended that story by telling me about the replacement arm he’d spent three months in a regrowth chamber getting back. I nodded as we headed into the port waystation to return the hovercar. “Kid one thing you learn doing this job, there ain’t any second chances, it’s you or them, you start second guessing yourself and your gonna end up 6 feet under real quick!”

I strolled back into the ship and Gretcha stayed real quiet, I looked at the graze in my forehead in the mirror and I heard a laugh in my head.*You gonna be ok Jake? Looks like you didn’t duck fast enough got you a real nice scar there.* I growled at her to shut up, my brain was still spinning, I guess coming to the realization my job was to kill people had left me feeling strung out, I tensed as Grev walked past me into the galley, the hard look on his face didn’t sit to well but I got the feeling my baptism of fire hadn’t gone the way Grev had expected it to go my first time out.”When your done sulking, get your ass up there to the pilot couch and jump us to Haven, I got a mission to turn in.”

We didn’t speak the entire flight back. Gretcha kept to herself, I was left to my own devices,Grev just locked himself in his cabin. I later found out from Gretcha he’d been drinking hard in there, I vowed then and there I would never go that way. Being a bounty hunter is rough ass hard work,scum keeps on coming and we’re the intergalactic garbage men that get called on to take it out, when it starts backing up on societies doorstep. Over the next two years I learned and trained hard to be the best I could be,I took to notching the haft of my Halberd, every time I put another piece of garbage in the ground, each got a notch on the haft. During my third year working with Grev we got a call to return to station 359. 

I jumped us to the Haven jump point and watched as Grev came out of his room.”Well kid, looks like you got some mail,why don’t you take a look see, while I grab some lunch then we can head on down. *Well Jake...don’t just gawk over there open that message and let’s see what it’s all about!* I had no idea Grev had put me in for the advancement trials, I swallowed in a dry mouth as the message scrolled up on the main viewer.Apprentice Pendleton will report to Haven 359 testing station and undergo the hunters trials for advancement to trackers rank.My head started reeling, the invitation had my ID code on it,and Grevs scrawling letters at the bottom.*Looks like Grevs getting ready to finally take his masters trials kid, it means he’ll be staying dirtside and becoming a master of the trials, from now on it’s gonna be you and me I guess.*

I was gonna be tested, I sat down next to Grev in the galley and he started smiling at me with a big stupid teddy bear grin.”Did you think I was gonna hold your hand for ya for the rest of days?” I laughed at him.”Nah but you could have warned me you were gonna drop me head first into that nest of sting vipers down there.” “What and spoil all the fun of that look on yer face when you found out I had dropped ya, where’s the fun in that?” I stared at him, the things I had learned about how to stay alive and trust my instincts had all been learned from a damned teddy bear looking cold hearted killer, I clasped arms with Grev,and I could see a tear in the corner of his eye.”Kid this ain’t no easy test,you fail,your gonna be dead,the trials pick the hottest bounties on the councils wanted list,then they send you trial takers out to earn your rank.” *More then 70% of the apprentices who enter the trials for advancement die during them,Grev ain’t gonna say it so I will,this is where it all gets real,from here on out,you’ll live,eat and breath being a bounty hunter,or else,I’ll be finding a new partner pretty soon.* That threw a dash of ice water across my nerves,My mentor was leaving me,and now I’d need to stand on my own two feet and prove to the guild I could make the cut.”Any last words of sage advice?”

“Yeah I got some for ya,keep yer head down,your eyes peeled and your mind alert to the stink of scum prowling for you to kill ya.” At the landing port we parted ways I looked into Grevs old room and it was bare to the walls all the pics,every last holotape,his entire weapon collection gone packed into the boxes he was loading into a rental hovercar. He never looked back once as he drove away, the ship echoed hollowly as I walked to the boarding ramp.*Guess I’m on my own from now on huh?* *Well you could always apply for a partner if you make it through the trials Jake and I’m thinking that’s gonna be something you're gonna breeze through,not saying it won’t be hard,but you’ve had one of the best trainers the guild has ever put out,and just so you know he left you a holomessage,said to tell you once he was gone,should I play it now?*

I sat down and listened to my old mentors voice,to my ears he sounded old and tired all of a sudden.”Kid...there ain’t no easy way to earn what your after in this here life, I still remember a scrawny human kid getting his ass handed to him over a pile of junk and a few credits,now that kid is a hardened monster,with sharpened instincts,fine tuned senses, and a drive to overcome the cruelty life throws innocent folks when scum try to cause pain and destruction to happen,one day we’ll meet again kid, I hope when that day comes you meet me standing up, and not boots first into a cold grave till then, you keep my ship clean and on the straight and narrow understand.” 

I replayed the message a few times listening to him ramble, an hearing the things he hadn’t said behind the gruff and rough words, he’d handed me.*Gretcha did he say anything to you before he left?* *Yeah..said to tell you when you asked to mind your own damned business,and keep your mind on what your doing.* She laughed and I started to feel a little better about the whole thing, little knowing what tomorrow would bring, or just how deadly things were about to become.*Well Grev taught me one thing I think I am gonna take advantage of since were in town, I think I am over due to paint this here town red tonight!* *Jake just what are you up to?* I laughed and pulled up a comcode for an old friend of mine. Xila answered on the third ring.”Who is this?” 

I laughed and told her who it was, over the last couple years my voice hadn’t changed much maybe she’d just forgotten me,I showed up at the bar and was greeted by a punch in the face from a drunken Berelian, me and the big lizard went around a couple times and finally I kicked his hard bitten ass to the curb, feeling my oats I walked back in and right to the bar, Xila turned and stared at me with an intensity I’d forgotten.”You don’t write, you don’t call, then you waltz your happy near drunk ass back into my place and make my heart race like a school girls, what the hell do you think...She never got to finish her statement my lips found hers and I pulled her over the bar into my arms. That got more then a few catcalls and wolf whistles from the crowd but I wasn’t done wooing that gal yet,I opened my pouch and pulled out a Tircallian Fire opal pushing it under her nose,she inhaled sharply the stones were used by sensitives, and for only one purpose.”Boy you better not be playing with my emotions, you know what that stones used for?” I nodded and pulled her tight to me.”Yep I know exactly what that stones used for..and you don’t see me running for my life yet.” I knew if she got mad my brain could be turned to mush pretty quick.I heard her sigh, and she whispered.”You sure about this?” I wasn’t sure but I had been alone long enough to know I was done being alone.”I got that appraised by a broker on Staracus Three, had it certified and attuned, it is eight carats in weight and tests out in the high spectrum bands for clarity.”

I heard the bunch around us inhale sharply and let out a collective sigh,seemed most of them knew what I was up to at that point.”You gonna take the oath?” I grinned,her face went through so many emotions as we stood there,I could see the tears in her eyes and felt the first gentle touch caress my brain,like soft silk dragging across my thoughts. Ok so I was a human nobody bounty hunter what could I offer her, except all of me,I can’t remember what happened after that,but I woke up early the next morning in my ship to hear the soft dulcet tones of Xila singing in the galley.*Uh..so anything I should be advised of before I beard the lion in the den out there?* *Oh after the things you did last night...I’d be surprised if she lets you out of her sight from now on,oh and while were talking about crazy stuff, you might need to uh wash the galley table down I think that happened somewhere around hour three of you two going at it like two felines in heat.*

I laughed until Gretcha told me she had made holotapes of the whole thing if I wanted to review things. I don’t think that would have been something taken to well by the gal I had become engaged to the night before.*Uh maybe you should erase that shit before she finds out and turns us both into paste.* Gretcha grumbled but did as she was told,I made it into the galley just in time to eat a huge breakfast.”So we okay?” Xila raised an eyebrow and I could see a tiny smile crease the corner of her lip.”Well if we weren’t yesterday after last night, I’d say things have certainly come up roses for us,I have to ask where did you get a stone like that?”

“Grev and I were out on the wild frontier of Santaus prime, chasing down a pack of outlaws that had blown up a series of banks in the Hydra sector three months ago we finally caught up to them they had gone to ground in a monastery run by Brothers of the hidden eye,well one thing led to another I ended up saving the primary brother and as a reward he gave me that stone,Grev told me what the thing was worth long before I had it appraised, uh so I know sort of what it’s supposed to do,but still a little unclear about the whole it joins two minds together thing.”

Boy was I about to learn the hard way what I had gotten myself into with a cute alien girl who now had a permanent link to my every thought. I guess when it comes to love with aliens, not knowing what to expect can sometimes be exciting,or scare the living crap out of you the first time you feel your partner softly creeping through your brain. The rest of the day I learned the hard way just what it meant to be engaged to Xila. Gretcha laughed and laughed at my expense, as I took my first steps into my new engagement.”We must practice the ceremony until you can recite it by heart,when you can only then can we approach the priest.” I started to have some grave misgivings when she mentioned having to meet some priest but eh, I didn’t know then what that was going to mean in the long run.Ever sit there and say to yourself if I knew then what I know now I would have run screaming,well that was the sort of situation I’d inadvertently stepped into with both feet.

I was sitting in the galley one morning two weeks later still awaiting my testing time when the message came, the next day I was to report to the guild house to be given my assignment. I answered with a smiling face but the messenger looked at me and just shook his head as he handed me the sealed invitation. Something about the guy made my hair stand on end,he felt like an interloper,like a spy of some kind,then it dawned on me likely he would be my observer.


	4. The trials

I got cleaned up and headed to the guild house, every eye seemed to be following me as I stepped into station 359. I headed over to the counter and the same old eight legger was standing there. He smiled at me and told me to slot my arm in the machine as I had done the very first time Grev had brought me here. I did as instructed and I could hear the thing working.“Apprentice Jake Pendelton, your mentor has placed you in the trials of advancement for the rank of tracker,do you accept this trial?” I stared at the device,here was my only chance to reject the trial, I’d have to wait another 4 years to get my next chance, I knew Grev was sure I could make the cut.”I accept!” an identiplate came to life, there was no going back now I placed my right hand on the plate and felt the warmth of the scan as it registered me into the trial lottery.

“Boy Grev knew you would take the chance, let’s see who the council decided needs killing most.” I grinned stupidly as I waited that few minutes to receive the hard files,the eyes on me just kept watching, each of them was a trial taker, I finally got the file and found a seat with the rest.The room felt alive,like an undercurrent of restless power just waiting to be unleashed on the unsuspecting galaxy,two more applicants for the trial went through the ritual and got files just like the one I held in my hands. The head of the guild appeared, striding out of the elevator he moved to the front of the room and nodded at us.”All of you here have been well trained,your mentors have placed you in the trials for advancement to tracker rank,each of you in this room has a file, you may now open it and begin. Good hunting all!” And like that he was gone, I cracked the seal on the file and got my first look at my target, he was a Tauran.

Basics told me just by looking someone thought they were being funny, this guy was a wrecking machine,exmilitary,special forces training on one of the heavy gravity worlds in the Altair belt, a list of service citations as long as my arm,and a war crimes list just as big filed by the exact same government that had trained him in the first place, something began to stink about this file real fast, they had sent a government retrieval team to recover their asset only to have the entire team returned in a box with a note that said I’m coming for you. I closed the file and went over to the counter.”This doesn’t look like a normal bounty to me,care to explain why I’m being sent after a soldier accused of war crimes?”

“Council was petitioned, your taking the trial, it’s your job to see it gets taken care of you can requisition up to twenty thousand in weapons and gear from the council accounts,good hunting kid.” I stood there as the next guy in line took my place at the counter.Twenty thousand, they’d given me a small fortune to spend on equipment somewhere someone was having a laugh at my expense, but I shuffled out of the guild house with the knowledge that if this went south, I was going to be one of those statistics they told apprentices about in years to come. I closed the file and stepped into the first place my feet guided me to,my eyes came to rest on A Rigelian the were plant folks,this one looked like he hadn’t moved in years.I stared around me guess my instincts for survival hadn’t guided me wrong I’d walked into a high end armorer.

Four eye stalks rose from his news sheet as I came through the door.”What can I get you today citizen?” I glanced around and asked.”You got anything that can stop a hyperstatic bomb at ignition range?” He started laughing,I guess he thought I was trying to be funny I headed to the counter and started looking through the catalog of armor he had on hand. After nearly two hours the guy seemed to be getting a bit on edge.”Listen you ain’t going to find what your looking for here kid, the stuff I sell is for your average customer,but your looking for quality I don’t usually stock, though your in luck I know someone that can give you a hand,here tell him Philo sent you and good luck,if he doesn’t want to talk to you,you’ll never find him kid.”

I took the address, and rented a hovercar, the address was way the hell out in the middle of nowhere. I drove for what must have been another three hours deep into the jungle, it was getting dark by the time I found the place. I drove up to the gate, and stopped. I could feel eyes on me as I stepped out of the car to open the gate.”That’s far enough, what’s yer business here?” I couldn’t see who was talking to me, but I sure as hell could feel the tension in the air. “Philo sent me,he said you were the being to talk to about armor.” I heard a nerve racking click of a weapon trigger being depressed.”You got guts coming to my door in the dark,that fat bastard hasn’t sent me work in ages, you must be a special case,well don’t stand there gawping get yer odd ass in here and let me take a closer look at ya.”

The darkness concealed the armorers features from me until we got to the porch. My inhalation made him grin.”What you ain’t ever seen an Ignian before?” I nodded stupidly at the huge pile of moving rock.”Boy you come here looking for help then act like I’m some sort of monster, better think again before I loose my temper and boot yer bad mannered ass off my property!” I apologized and he nodded,opening the door we entered a huge workshop, I glanced around and amazement colored my eyes.”Philo seemed to think I could help you huh, what is it your looking for exactly then?” I pulled the file from my pack and handed it to him, he reached into a pocket on his smock and pulled out a pair of magnifying glasses,he started reading the file and I heard him growling to himself.

“Well looks like you done drew the ringer this year kid, you must have a deathwish.” I glared at him he wasn’t being funny,he meant it.”Well guess that’s why I came here then.” My reply made him crack another smile.”Well at least you’ll die looking good kid, but that there is a Tauran,they don’t break,they don’t run,and they don’t hide from nobody unless they want to, they are born killing each other. In the creche they hatch out with brothers and sister and the killing starts their world is a lava bubbling hellhole circling a red giant out in the Helios sector.” I nodded as the old Ignian started taking my measurements.”Yer still going to go after him though ain’t ya?” I nodded he sighed.”Boy it’s going to take a lot of gumption to even stare down what yer going after,who the hell trained a snotty nosed kid like you anyway?”

“Grev Altacca was my mentor.” That stopped his measurements for a second.”Boy that there name has never crossed my path from any apprentice,tell me yer lying and I’ll forgive you, old Grev ain’t never taken any apprentice that I heard tell of,and I’ve known that bastard for nigh on a hundred and twenty years!” I peeled back my tunic sleeve and showed him the tattoo Grev had inked on my flesh.The Ignians eyes came to rest on it and got round as dinner plates.”Well I’ll be damned you ain’t lying, what’s your story kid, what makes you so special?” I sat there while he worked explaining my history with Grev,from how he’d saved a scrawny punk kid on the docks of some gods forsaken waystation to our parting ways recently.”Guess he finally went for his masters trials huh?” I nodded.”Well if you insist on going off to get yer self killed, then we better find you something to wear then.” We walked further into the workshop and I could feel the affinity buzzing in my head.”Right then lead me to it boy, it’s singing in yer blood ain’t it?” I  
slowly nodded I felt drawn to a back corner to a locked and sealed box,when I stopped in front of it I heard the old Ignian laugh.”Now how did I know you were gonna stop there, you have no idea what’s inside that box do ya?” I shook my head, all I knew was I’d followed the feeling to this box,whatever was inside spoke to me on an instinctive level.

“I’ll be back in a minute,you stay here.” He ascended the stairs and a few minutes later came back with a key for the lock.”Right then, telling you right now this ain’t going to be cheap boy,probably going to take every last credit them stingy bastard gave you for a gear allowance but when were done, you’ll never need another suit of armor.” His words made me dizzy, he unlocked the box and popped the lid,inside was glittering blue metal ingots,hundreds of them shining up at us. I could feel the stuff singing to me.”This is Trilidium Cobalt, it’s the rarest metal in the known galaxy boy, I am one of the few knows how to forge it, when I’m done this here armor will fit you like a second skin,it’s light,defuses heat and energy fast, and sheds acid and gas attacks like water, there’s only one thing about the stuff that makes people shy away from using it.”

I waited for him to go on.”Right...armor made from Trilidium Cobalt bonds to the flesh of the user, it sends tendrils into the users skin,joins with your nervous system and some folks say it speaks to them on an instinctive level, I ain’t never worked the stuff without feeling like it was waiting patiently for me to release it from it’s static form, legends say armor made from it is a partnership formed between living metal and the being it’s made to protect, my master once made a suit for a bounty hunter like you,that guy went on to become a legend in his own time nigh on three centuries ago , Guess it’s my turn now.” 

He worked well into the night,setting the pattern, and starting the metal to melting in the huge injector forges crucible. Three days later I lay in the forge bed in the articulation frame he had crafted for me.”Alright boy you ready to endure what’s coming next?” I nodded,feeling like I was about to piss myself, the armor would be sprayed over the articulation frame and bond with my skin.”Right then, see you on the other side!” The huge sealing cover came down with a hydraulic sound that made me shiver,my heart was racing, I could feel the metal singing to me. There was no going back now, the road before me would forever change.

I heard the harsh sound coming then the searing touch of heat like nothing I’d ever felt before,the metal sprayed on my skin sent jags of pain through my body, I lost consciousness as I was enclosed in the armor I’d wear the rest of my life.I woke 6 hours later and stared up into the old Ignians crusty face.”You alive boy?” I nodded as he helped me out of the forge.”Well looks like you and the armor made it through the bonding okay,you feeling hungry?” I nodded again I felt like I hadn’t eaten in ages.”Well now that yer alive and all your gonna notice things a bit differently. I raised an eyebrow,what the hell could be worse then having to live in a suit of armor the rest of my life.*What he’s trying to tell you, is that suit he made you is sentient or he’s trying to at least, craftsmen these days, it’s a wonder they haven’t lost the art of working bioorganic metals,now then lets discuss your future!* The gods be damned armor was talking to me I heard it start laughing,my brain had taken a good bit of time just getting used to having Gretcha in there, and now I had a smarmy smart ass suit of living metal armor bonded to my skin, great just what I needed another mental house guest that would never leave.

I glared at the old Ignian and he gave me a lopsided grin.”I’m guessing it’s explaining to you by that look on yer face,alright I’ll wait out in the next room,let you two get to know one another better before we settle up.” I growled under my breath and he just started laughing.”Warned you right up front boy, you only have yourself to blame for everything that’s happened to you from that point,oh and you can tell it for me proper craftsmen know exactly what they are doing, always!” I sat there trying to come to grips with living armor.”Okay so let me get this straight, you’re alive, that feeling I felt in the beginning was you sending feelers into my flesh as you were sprayed onto my skin?” 

*Yep my mesh has joined to your entire nervous system fusing us into one symbiotic lifeform,neat huh.* ” Piss off neat huh, I get saddled with another mental houseguest and you get to move around mooching off me the rest of my days, sounds pretty shitty from where I’m standing you living metal parasite!” *Woah back the hovertruck up a second, one I am a symbiotic lifeform not a parasite! Two I didn’t have a say in getting applied to you that was all you asshole! Three you might supply me a home but I’m the bit that protects your sorry ass from getting blown to atoms,I think that means a fair partnership retard!*

We were going to have a longer discussion on the way back to station 359,but right then I had to go pay for my newest house guest. I stepped out into the shop and moved to the counter.”So that’ll be 20 thousand kid” I reached in my pack for the cred stick and a bioorganic metal arm snatched it from my hand.The Old Ignians eyes narrowed.”What the nine hells is it doing?” *Tell this over charging asshole he paid 5 thousand for my box from those miners, does he think its fair to charge 15 thousand for his services?* I relayed what the suit had said and I saw the old Ignians eyes tighten even more.”Alright.. I’ll split it with you 10 thousand not a microcredit less!”

I gave him a 2 thousand credit tip and watched his eyes turn cheery.”You ever have anyone ask you for armor advice send them my way boy,luck of the gods go with ya,yer gonna need it.” I drove away thinking that my life couldn’t get any worse, then it started.*Jake what is that thing doing in here?* I had come back into Gretcha’s sense range and the two of them started a screaming match in my head,seemed that Gretcha and the bioorganic metal symbiotes had a long standing disagreement over possession of a body,and I was the one stuck in the middle of their little cat fight. It started grinding on my nerves listening to them both screeching like two spoiled children in my brain. Finally I couldn’t take anymore.”SHUT THE HELL UP BOTH OF YOU!” my head reeled, in the silence that ensued.It became utterly quiet, like a tomb quiet, I drove the rest of the way back to the station in that silence.

As if my life wasn’t turned upside down enough when I cracked the door to the ship Xila was sitting at the galley table, Gretcha’s eyestalk protruded from the ceiling and I could feel her internal grin wash across my brain.”I am not leaving!” Were the first words out of her mouth I walked over and glared at the eyestalk.*Did you let her in here?* *Oh are we speaking again?* I growled internally and listened to Gretcha giggle.*She has a proper claim on being here,you’re the one told her you were oath bonding with her, only have yourself to blame on that one smart ass,now about this thing you brought home.* I shut her out,after the outburst I had in the hovercar on the way back my brain had put up a door I could open or close when I felt like it,Gretcha noticed and quieted down.*Whatever that is you’ve discovered how to do,it hurts when you do it Jake,please don’t do that again, I would like to discuss this matter without screaming like before if we can come to an agreement?*

I glared at the eyestalk and turned to Xila.”One I tell you to do something you do it no questions asked,two when we are anywhere other then aboard you will follow proper guild protocol when dealing with clients, three the rest of the time it’s up to us what we do. I could internally hear two snickers coming from the dark recesses of my brain, I had words and it was not going to be pretty if things didn’t start going my way it was my brain and the others living in it were going to do as they were told from now on.*Alright both of you get your sorry asses in here where I can see you!* *Does it have to be here while were talking?* *Well look whose talking sweetheart, the big brain wants to cry and whine about how unfair it is to have to share her happy home with another symbiote,what you afraid he’s going to like me better then you?*

*SHUT IT BOTH OF YOU!* they both fell silent.*Now we are going to come to an agreement right damned now understood, I need him to protect me from danger, and I need her to get me where I need to go to do my job, so from now on each of us will do their job am I understood?!* Two sets of downcast eyes looked sheepishly at each other but they both nodded.*Right then…Gretcha I’ll be in the pilots couch in two minutes,be ready to jump us out to the Helios sector.* *What do you want me to do boss?* *For the gods sake relax, were nowhere near combat okay?* *Uh so what does relaxing mean exactly?* *It means you’re not on alert,you can stand down and unwind.* 

I turned to look at Xila.”Okay lets hear what you have to say.” She turned those lavender eyes on me and I could feel the sensual feelings coming off her.”Right I know we got off to a rocky start here,but I do have very powerful feelings for you,uh why are you looking like that at me?” “Because you gave me your oath, you do realize that using the stone created a mind bridge between us right,everything you feel or think rolls through my head,just like it does through yours,now about the new houseguest does he always drop bits of himself on the floor?”

I looked down to where she was pointing and noticed a glowing drop of blue glittering metal that quickly absorbed into the decking.*Care to explain?* *You’re the one told me to relax, sorry about the waste products getting away there.* *You just took a dump on the decking,ok next time you need to relieve yourself tell me and I’ll use the toilet you barbarian.* I turned back to Xila and the grin on her face was contagious.”Okay so you heard that right?” “Yep don’t be so hard on him,it’s got to be new to him to, having never been bonded to a living being before he’s waited for countless centuries only to end up with a freaky sexy human who bosses him around like he’s a pet and not a friend.” Those words hit home pretty hard I took a look inside at the way I had been treating it and she was right,basically I had been acting like a controlling asshole,I sighed and nudged the armor.*Listen we’re going to have to get adjusted to each other right, how about we just chill and let it just flow naturally sound good?* *What is this shit in my processing vector?* *Uh that was a mistake, it won’t happen again.* I could feel Gretcha’s internal eyes glaring daggers at the armor,but she didn’t say another word.”Prepare for jump  
Xila.” I called over the coms, I heard her reply she was ready for transition, I felt the calculations flow and the spark ignite,the jump surge made my brain feel like it always did when I dove into the pleasure inducing field that was Gretcha’s way of eliminating jump sickness.

It was a long jump to Alpha Mootarus, The entire sector was an active meteor field laced with scattered class J worlds average gravity about 2 and half G standard to even walk around on the surface I’d need an antigravity field generator of some kind.*No you don’t, my frame can withstand up to 5 G’s anything after that and it gets iffy.* *Well that’s nice to know, now then let’s get over to the client and get the full story on our target.* I left Xila aboard with orders to jump out if I didn’t return in 24 hours.”This place looks well settled but you never know with aliens, could be this is just rest day and tomorrow it will be upside down.”

The surface temp was well above normal for me but I didn’t feel anything more then a slight discomfort when I stepped outside and got a first look at the surface, boiling lava pools,and smoke geysers dotted the landscape around the port. I headed for the transit tube and made my way across town to the address on the dispatch letter. I got to the address and rang the gong hanging by the door.”Hello who is there?” I looked into the com panel and told whoever it was I had been sent to take care of the problem they had contacted the guild about.”One moment I shall let you in.” I heard several locks cycle then the door slid aside to reveal a stark white elevator.”Please get in.” I followed directions and was whisked to a rooftop view of New Mootarus city.

“I am glad that the guild has acted this quickly on the problem,I hope your team is prepared to fight hard he won’t be taken easily I fear.” “Team what team, I’m all there is of a team do you realize when you called for a hunter the guild was going to dispatch a hunter if you think anymore hunters are coming your under a serious delusion mister.” The big Tauran started laughing, I glared at him until he stopped.”You have to be joking right? You one little pipsqueak,think you can take Hal out,seriously the tactical team we sent in had 20 guys in it,none of them returned except in a box addressed to the war ministers office with a note saying I’m coming for you tacked to a leg on the top of the pile of body parts,you’re the one whose acting under a delusion if you think you’ll be able to take him down!”

“Give me the details and I’ll be on my way!” The guy grabbed a file off his nearby desk and threw it in my face.”You know you must be stark raving mad to even think about going after Hal, he’ll eat you alive before you even notice he’s there!” “Then you won’t have to pay when I don’t return to get my bounty dickhead, thanks!” I opened the file with the details of last known location and known associates wow last known location was on Angelsdive a rough and tumble spacestation run by the intergalactic mafia, I’d been there only once with Grev the place was old family space Mafia run,and controlled,smugglers,data hackers and the scum of the galaxy lived there, one thing I’d learned on that first trip everything you did the family wanted a piece of including bounties on wanted criminals, I chalked it up to my bad luck that’s where the target had gone.*Gretcha get your tail warmed up, were jumping to Angelsdive.* *For shits sake Jake the last time we were there they sent sneakbots,and infiltration programs at me until we departed that god forsaken shithole, and didn’t you make trouble with the local Mafia boss the last time we were there?* *Ah shit I forgot about that, guess were going to have to stealth our way in and play hide and seek until I find the target and we can get the hell out of there.*

The jump to Angelsdive took nearly 8 days, I read over the targets data again and again memorizing every detail.*You know something still doesn’t seem right why would a decorated soldier suddenly go rogue and start committing war crimes against innocent civilian targets,it’s just not like his profile to do something like that,this damned files been bugging me since I got it handed to me,I think there’s more going on here then the councils been led to believe,and I think the people behind this mess are trying to cover their collective asses,what do you think Gretcha?* *I think it’s a setup, his record shows exemplary service up until the civil war on Hidachi, suddenly he goes berserk and starts blasting civilians his psych reports all show normal then the war ministry reports his sudden attacks and plasters it all over the media pretty much condemning him with that garbage they broadcast everywhere.*

I stared at the bounty cube and giggled when I turned it on.The picture that came up was normal but under that was wanted dead or alive. I laughed a second time and pointed the plainly worded message out to Gretcha,who started to giggle to.*You know going in guns blazing would be stupid so how about I go in find this Hal guy and we find out together what’s actually going on?**You know just walking around Angeldive might get you noticed by the family right?* *So if I get caught that’s my own fault, now how much longer before we reach the jump point for transition?* *About another 45 minutes why?* I put up my do not disturb door and crept into my cabin,Xila’s eyes caught fire when she noticed what I was up to. *Oh that’s nasty boss,can I watch?* I pushed the armor to the back on my brain and told him to be quiet or else he would get the door closed to him to, he quieted down and I could feel Gretcha sulking,*If you agree not to tape what were doing you can come in to,promise?* I felt that nod in the back of my brain as my girl slipped into bed beside me,her lips touched mine and I could feel everything strobing out of control,45 minutes later Gretcha whispered we were at the jump point ready for transition I crawled from the bed and padded up there naked except for an armored ring around my waist that showed where the armor was.

*Well isn’t that a sight.* *Listen we made it to Angeldive, I don’t wanna listen to anymore lip right now okay!*Gretcha smiled in the back of my brain and blew me a raspberry.”Odyssey this Angeldive station, you’re clear to dock at bay 42, welcome to Hell!” I nodded and fired the breaking thrusters as we glided into docking slip 42, already I could see nothing had changed since the last time I’d come through here with Grev. The docks were swarming with hobo’s and prostitutes looking to work the big shipping freighters when they made port.*Looks as bad as the last time we were here, thinking maybe I need to upgrade the loadout for this trip,got the feeling I might need a bit more stopping power then usual.* *It appears that Xila is under the impression she’s going out there with you,she’s suiting up in your cabin.* 

I rolled my eyes and headed for the door.”And just where do you think you’re going Ms?” She moved so fast I didn’t even see the combination hip throw, and arm lock,she was jamming my face into the deck.”If you think I’m going to stay aboard everytime we hit some gods foresaken shithole in the ass end of the galaxy, you better think again,didn’t spend 8 years learning Taan-Ku just for the health benefits,now wheres your weapons locker?”She released her hold, I nodded and got up from the deck.”I’m guessing I can’t convince you to stay aboard right?” “Not in this lifetime you said you wanted oath binding well here it is,that includes every damned irritating bit of me and if you don’t like it,tough shit.” I heard snickering coming from inside my head, and came to the realization the cute gal I thought was all peaches and cream was a razor sharp knife well hidden in a bouquet of flowers.

I opened the locker and she just started pawing through it like she was shopping at the local bazar. She finally dug out a set of cyberclaws and strapped them on her hands, digging further she pulled out a 20mm Arc cannon, and drove home the huge cartridge,throwing the heavy cannon over her shoulder she looked at me like she was waiting for a comment. I opened a second locker and found the PMB I had bought recently and pointed at the mess on the deck she had made.”You made the mess,you clean it up.” My comment made her raise an eyebrow at me but she knelt down and carefully put everything back in the locker she’d pulled it out of. 

I checked the Pulsar machine blaster and fed the ammo loop into the feed slot, locked and loaded we headed for the docking hatch. The air outside the hatch stank of stale sweat, and old Narco sticks a couple of the sleazy prostitutes headed our way followed by a fat pimp. I glared at the two females and pointed at their handler.”Not in the market,brought my own.” Xila raised an eyebrow again then pointed the 20mm right at the pimps face.”We ain’t looking for any threesomes or moresomes either so piss off!” Xila jammed the barrel up under the fat Yvics nose and smiled.I watched as the three scrambled away down the docks as if their asses were on fire.

“Tell me something where did a sensitive girl like you learn to handle heavy weapons and combat gear like that?” Xila stopped dead in her tracks.”My dad taught me, he was a star marine my early childhood was spent on every damned military base in 12 sectors, if it wasn’t some Gods forsaken shithole in the ass end of nowhere,it was some high tech world full of scum and vermin that would have loved to catch a young sensitive and sell her to the illegal cyberporn shit stains,you could say I had to learn it for self defense but that would be a lie,daddy thought that maybe one day I’d follow in his footsteps maybe join Psych core,become a military interrogator of even go for command school.”

“So where’s your dad now?” Xila squeezed her eyes closed.”He was killed in action during the Theleon Hardesti conflict in the Omicron sector 20 years ago,I’ve been on my own ever since,mom went catatonic when dad died, she just drifted away lost to us kids,my older brother joined the core,he’s stationed out somewhere in the Delta sector,my younger sister got involved with a bunch of narco dust heads and they found her body in a garbage compactor dust stains in both nostrils.” I reached out and squeezed her shoulder.”My folks were asteroid miners, last I knew the earth alliance had shipped them all to philas three, after getting taken off the transport I was on by Free Planets union soldiers, I ended up getting dumped on a station where Grev found me getting my ass kicked by the locals.”

The door sign read, The Hellhole. “Uh this looks like the place,lets slide in here and ask some quiet questions,the less trouble we stir up,the easier it will be right?” Xila nodded and entered the door ahead of me.The slam rock was so loud I could barely hear myself think,Xila headed right for the bar. Some asshole sitting there reached out and put his hand on her right ass cheek, Xila snatched the offenders hand off her ass and twisted one of his digits back till I could see the guy starting to sweat.”Don’t touch the merchandise unless your asked to, understand you Rotillian maggot?” I slouched down in the stool next to said maggot and slid the blade of my halberd up under his chin.”There some kind of problem here Xila?”The Rotillian let out a croak as Xila manipulated his hand, into a solid control lock.

“Nothing I wasn’t ready for,now since you volunteered so nicely what can you tell us about the guy my mans going to show you?” I activated the cube and eased it in front of his big froggy eyes. “This guy look familiar?” Xila gave his hand a harder squeeze and I could have sworn I heard bones breaking.”Yeah...Yeah he comes in here all the time,you just missed him by ten minutes he left with some Mafia guys,sent down to pick him up for questioning,sounded like he’d busted up some of the enforcers up on the family habitat ring,they don’t like people who mess with the family right.” “Thank you for being so cooperative sir.” Xila’s words sounded peaceful,unlike the action that followed,with lightning speed she stiffened the fingers of her left hand and punched the Rotillian in the throat, he fell unconscious to the floor in a heap.

We slid out of the Hellhole and headed for the elevators.”Ok, where did you learn to use the nerve pressure technique back there,Grev taught me that so I know what you just did,he’s going to have one hell of a head ache when he wakes up?” “Daddy wanted his little girl to be able to handle over zealous punk boyfriends to, it’s come in handy over the years dealing with drunks and lowlifes who thought they could start shit in my bar.” I smiled and leaned in to kiss her,the doors opened just then and the kiss turned into a shove, plasma bolts pinged off the door as it slid open,I could see a large figure hauling ass towards us my shove pushed Xila out of the blast that left a huge plasma burn in the wall of the elevator.

“Holy shit!” She screeched,crouching on the left side of the door as more weapons fire blasted our way.”Wonder what happened to piss off those guys heading our way?” “I think maybe the guy ahead of them might have something to do with that issue!” I howled just as the 9 foot tall Tauran dove head first into the elevator car with us. He scrambled up and slammed the down button then squeezed in next to me as a mob of angry Mafia enforcers came howling our way,the doors slammed shut right in the lead enforcers face, I could almost feel the guys breath on me.

I heard the loud click and glanced in Xila’s direction, she had the 20mm aimed right at Hals face.”Well look who we found Jake!” It took me a second or two to piece it all together then I started laughing.”Must be our lucky day.” The big Tauran growled.”You use that thing in this elevator and all of us are going to eat it, so I know your bluffing sweet thing,and you touch that PMB and I twist her head around so she can see between her own shoulder blades! I ain’t got any more reasons to live so what do I have to lose if I kill a few more Mafia goons today!”

I carefully reached in my coat and dropped the cube in his lap.”We ain’t mafia, now lets talk a little before things get anymore out of hand right.” The big Tauran glanced at the cube.”Aw for dingles sake,you guys are council bounty hunters, knew hiding out on this shithole station wouldn’t keep me out of the councils radar forever is this about to get ugly?” “Not if you don’t start it!” Xila sounded just a tad bit over excited. “Ok here’s the deal, I got given your case by the council the bounty is dead or alive I wanna try alive so we can figure out just what the hell happened from the reading I’ve done on you,the reports don’t add up,care to explain your side of the story?”

Hal began by telling us the thing from the beginning.”I got handed the assignment to go undercover and infiltrate one of the terrorist strongholds on a no account backwater world called Hidachi, things were going along just fine, that is until I started uncovering some rather highly placed individuals in the government I was working for were tied up with the terrorists, in fact I found links to several different high level politicians who were taking very large payoffs from the leaders of the terrorist cult the same cult that was planting bombs and letting off poison gas attacks in so many of our major cities. When I contacted my control officer and reported my findings I found out them sending me to investigate was part of a bigger sting already in motion back on the homeworld. My control officer must have been discovered,I heard shots,and a masked face came into view telling me I was next.” I nodded listening to him explain.“I did some more quick digging and found out the main payouts were being sent to the vice premiers personal accounts offworld at the intergalactic bank and trust company, not long after I went into hiding,then a kill team came to get me, I knew some of the faces those bastards sent,I trained most of those people,they left me no choice I had to shoot my way out of where I was holed up,lost the interceptor I’d been flying and ended up taking a tramp freighter out to this hellhole in the middle of nowhere.”

“Now that story makes sense, so to cover their asses and have you hunted down as a military criminal they told this pack of lies to the council,and defame you to the media as a war crimes committing piece of shit,I think when the council finds out how they were used,they aren’t going to be very happy could be they file charges, and levy fines against the assholes in your government. Only problem I can see is getting someone on the council to listen to you before your executed for the writs filed against you.”

“I had a thought.” I turned to stare at Xila.”I heard a long time ago about some criminal who the guild had been contracted to hunt down, when the guy surrendered to the hunter who had been tracking him, he demanded to have his case heard by a guild tribunal I can’t remember exactly what happened but I think that’s worth a shot to look into.” Hal nodded and I headed to the pilots couch to calculate the jump to station 359, my scar started itching as I made the jump,who the hell did I know higher up the ladder in the guild.*You could always call Grev.* I swallowed Grev had only been a guild master for a short time now,was it fair to try pulling strings to get my case thrown in front of a tribunal using him like that.*He’ll be pissed off if you don’t call him.*

*Right then...put in a hypertrans communication to Grev,explain whats going on and tell him to meet me at the Pub where we had our first drink.* Gretcha flash transcribed the data and sent a hypertrans message to Grev, I sat back in the couch and stared at the null space streaking by.Several hours later I was having a quick bite after working out with both Hal and Xila.*You have a hypertrans message waiting at the com* I smiled and crossed my fingers, Xila came out of our cabin and stared at me with a sly grin on her face.”So that was fast,can I hear what the grouchy old teddy bear has to say?”

“Hey kid how’s it going, sounds like your in a bit of trouble, I’ll meet you at the pub,but telling you right now if you demand a tribunal, your going to be the one standing for the accused,and me being your former master I’ll be set as the prosecutor,you better have your damned shit together because there ain’t no kid gloves during a tribunal,right then talk to you soon.” Xila stood there next to me and put a finger to her lip.”Well that doesn’t sound to encouraging, you sure about this?” “What the hell else are we going to do,I sure as hell don’t want to be responsible for killing an innocent.” Hal walked in and slammed his huge fist down on the com panel.”I ain’t innocent but I sure as hell ain’t a war criminal, sons of bitches need to pay!”

*We have an incoming transmission from the the guild leader,it’s coming in live,opening the channel now.* I turned in my seat in time to see the guild leader blink his large golden eyes in astonishment at my target walking around free inside my ship.”Well then apprentice Pendelton you have requested a tribunal to adjudicate the bounty you were sent to collect, you will land at the following coordinates and report to the council chambers by 0800 hours tomorrow that is all.” As quickly as he had appeared on my screen he was gone*Well that was sure anticlimactic, you would think he would at least have said something about our payout.* I shook my head,sometimes Gretcha was a little to literal minded. *If we get Hal off we aren’t going to get paid at all, frankly I wouldn’t take a microcred from the scum who sent us after Hal.*


	5. The accused

I hailed an autocab and got dropped off at the first pub I’d ever gotten drunk in with Grev, when I walked in he turned at the bar, and just smiled.”Good to see your still alive kid,now why the hell have you gone and gotten yourself into such straights?” “Because the bounty is invalid, the bastards who took out the contract to have the target hunted down did so under false accusation, I intend to prove to the tribunal that was what was perpetrated on them by the Alpha Mootarus government.” “You got hard evidence to back up that statement Jake?” “Not as of yet,but I’m working on it.” “Well as of 0800 tomorrow morning your time is up,here this is the directives and measures the tribunal will have to follow, whoever put the contract out on the accused sure has covered themselves well, just so you know I’ll be doing everything in my power to see the accused is brought to execution in a timely manner,so you better find some way to stall or delay the judgement.” Hal was taken into custody by council guards when we touched down.

I left the bar not long after, and spent the rest of the evening reviewing the directives and measures. I finally spotted something in a clause that brought a bit of hope to our cause. The accused had the right to demand to face his accusers, that in itself would slow the proceedings down to a crawl, someone from the war ministry on Mootarus would have to come reply to the charges, that would allow me to dig further into the case and maybe find evidence of false accusations having been brought against the accused.*Gretcha hows it coming on your end?*

*I’m doing my damnedest to hack into the Alpha Mootarus government data base,so far I’ve broken into 260 firewalls, and numerous data traps in search of anything having to do with operation darklight, someones been through here and cleaned the entire network up, it stinks of subterfuge and shady deals in here Jake, am about to access the prime ministers home office,one sec.* Suddenly I heard a mental scream and Gretcha’s presence on the ship was gone. I collapsed to the floor having had my link to her severed like a razor sharp blade had cut her out of my brain. Xila returned two hours later and found me curled on the floor with my hands covering my ears,the mental scream had left my mind in a state of shock.

Six hours later just after midnight local, I felt Gretcha’s presence returned to the ship,even in my shocked mental state I rolled over and smiled up at the eyestalk on the ceiling.*What the hell happened to you!?* *I was unlucky enough to trigger the Prime ministers hacking defenses,and got sealed behind a data wall in the Alpha Mootarus central government computer, that’s when I ran into the one person we needed to locate, he is a ghost in the machine, a self aware program that was created to hide from the double dealing government officials who had infested the upper houses of the Alpha Mootarus parliament, he was created to protect certain secret oversight projects and remain undetected by the search algorithms being used to hunt down the evidence gathered during the investigation on Hidachi.* *Great but how does that help us right now?* *You’ll see come tomorrow,don’t go for the delaying tactic just tell the council you wish to enter into evidence the transmission that will be broadcast at exactly 0805 tomorrow from the Alpha Mootarus government broadcasting tower.*

I rolled over and Xila moaned softly,she seemed highly restless,likely she was having some bad nightmares, I softly nudged her awake.”Hey Gretcha’s back, guess things aren’t so bad you gonna be okay now?” She propped herself up on one elbow and stared at me.”You know it’s hard enough just getting to sleep,with two other voices in here with us and right now you’re not helping, so if you don’t mind I need my beauty rest.” She laid back down and closed her eyes,I could feel her looking at me through slit eyes in the darkened room.”You ain’t sleeping, so what’s really bugging you?” I heard her sigh and she reached for the bedside lamp.“So to be honest...I...well I’ve been alone on my own for ages, are you really sure you want to be bound to me the rest of your life?” I reached for her and pulled her to me.”Listen to me woman, where I come from a man says he wants to marry you he means it, you ain’t wiggling out of this now, so close your eyes and think about us on our wedding day.” Xila laid her head on my chest and I could feel wet tears on my skin.”So uh think we could get a place of our own? I heard they opened Serendipity for colonization.” I sighed. “That’s what you’re worried about, ok after we get done tomorrow, I’ll jump us out to Serendipity and we’ll see if we can afford to live there.”

I heard her sigh and she turned out the light.*You know Serendipity is one of those tourist traps gentle breezes,tropical weather patterns all year long,warm oceans and a really long rotational cycle the average year there is 490 days long with a 30 hour day night cycle.* *Well, see if you can access the local government network, and find out what they require to get property there.* *Right...I’ll get on it in the morning,right now I need to recharge it’s a long trip across 6 sectors and I’m tired.* *Get some rest, see you in the morning.* I spent the remaining hours just laying there in the darkness my arm around Xila.*0700 Jake you should probably get going, the councils likely going to want to ask you some questions before the hearing begins.* *Right start looking into Serendipity will you, thinking Xila wants to find a place we can call home out there.* *I’ll start looking into it,you get going.* I got into a dress suit, and shined my boots till they glowed. I nudged Xila and gave her a kiss,”You take it easy babe, this shouldn’t take to long.”I called an autocab and waited for it to take me to the tribunal hall.”That’ll be 10.50 sir.” I paid the cab and headed inside, I saw the place was full of council guards each of them heavily armed.They dragged Hal in, the restraints looked so small against his giant frame.His tail restlessly swishing back and forth as they shoved him down in the accused seat. I walked up to stand in the defenders circle next to him. At 0800 on the dot the three tribunal judges filed into the hall and sat behind the court table. I glanced over at the Prosecutors circle and Grev was wearing his masters robe. The tribunal announced the start of the trial and Grev stood up to pronounce the list of the accused crimes.

Hal growled something under his breath, and was told to close his mouth while the prosecutor was listing his crimes. I looked over and watched him snap the restraints like they were made of Paper.He dropped them in front of him on the floor the enforcers moved to get him restrained and the head of the tribunal yelled at them to halt. I raised an eyebrow and watched as the tribunal spoke together, the guards seemed to be nervous, the huge Tauran didn’t bat an eyelash as he sat there waiting for them to make a decision.”If the accused had wanted to fight his way out of the tribunal hall he could have killed all of the guards here, and us on this tribunal that being said, guards you will stand behind the accused until the trial is finished.”

I watched as six council guards leveled heavy weapons at Hal’s back and turned to listen to Grev finish listing his supposed crimes. “Now then defense have you any evidence to support your case of innocence for the accused before we issue our judgement?” I rose from my seat and regarded the head speaker.”Yes sir I have evidence it will be transmitted from Alpha Mootarus on the government channel in about two minutes, I request the view screen be activated to receive the incoming transmission.” The head speaker summoned a tech and the screen rolled down from a recess in the ceiling, a minute later it began receiving an incoming transmission from the government channel on Alpha Mootarus.

The shady shit that was delivered by the AI that had been hiding in the Alpha Mootarus government computer system laid out everything from beginning to end in how Hal’s case was handled. It listed the hidden accounts, and pointed fingers at the high level officials who had gotten their hands dirty with a known terrorist cult,the details showed Hal being assigned to the operation Darklight mission by his superiors and the orders to smear his name being given out by the vice premier along side the execution order to have Hal silenced for his part in exposing them and their underhanded dealings to military intelligence and the planetary premiers office

At the same time as we were receiving the transmission the AI had been releasing the entire story to the Alpha Mootarus press and media, he ended his transmission by showing the uproar that was starting to unfold on Alpha Mootarus when the story broke just minutes before,government troops were being called in to quell the outraged crowd that started gathering in front of the government building in New Mootarus city, I spotted the guy who had given me the file on Hal ducking into an armored hovercar and being whisked away.I turned when the head speaker cleared his throat.”Well then in light of the evidence brought to light before this tribunal,my associates and I find the charges brought against the accused invalid,we will be filing the appropriate charges against the Alpha Mootarus government for false charges being filed with our organization. The accused is found not guilty and is forthwith released from our custody,this trial is closed.” I sat there as the tribunal stood and filed out,Grev started laughing,then came over to pat me on the back.”Kid when you called me and told me about this case I thought we were going to witness an execution today,guess I was wrong.” He then turned to Hal.”So what are your plans now that you have been exonerated by the tribunal?” The big Tauran looked over at me and I could see the wheels behind his eyes turning.”Seems to me my skill set might come in handy hunting down the scum of the galaxy,might just take up with the guild,seeing as how if it hadn’t been for Jake here, I would have likely been executed out of hand.”

“Well after passing his trials, Jake can take an apprentice now, so Jake you can apply for a payout through the guild accounting house looks like you have somethings to talk to the big Tauran here about.” I grinned stupidly at him.”I think the guild leader is going to be pissed when he hears what the Alpha Mootarus government tried to pull.” Grev started laughing.”The last bunch tried pulling the wool over the guilds eyes, got sanctioned for 20 years, crime rose so high it over threw the planetary government, and they had numerous uprisings until it’s neighbors sent a armed fleet to put it down.”

“Well I’ll be seeing you kid, I got some business to take care of got a transmission from Thalia serpenti, I got a call from that waitress out there took her long enough to call me.” I wolf whistled and watched his face turn bright red.”You just keep your thoughts to yourself, you overgrown monkey, I...you...screw you boy it’s my private business. I nodded to Hal and we followed Grev out the door.”So where do I apply for a payout?” My question to the clerk directed me to the main guild office, I got paid 5000 credits for the bounty and given my guild certification to trackers rank. I celebrated with Hal at the pub where I’d first met Xila,after the morning we’d had I needed a break.

“What can I get you?” I looked up and took a look at the board. “Looks like number three sounds good to me,you feeling hungry Hal?” He sat down next to me and nodded.I never saw anyone eat that much in one sitting,the big Tauran started with four of the number threes,went on to devour 3 more number two’s and finished with 4 glasses of juice. People were staring at him by the time he got to the last plate, I was amazed by the sight. I paid up for us and walked to the port. “You always eat that much?” I heard him snort and I glanced over to see him staring at me.“I haven’t eaten in about a week, so yeah usually I don’t need that much, but if I don’t eat for a while I will need to consume a good bit of food.”

Xila was sitting on the boarding ramp sunning herself when we got back.”Looks like everything turned out ok, the guild pay you anything for all that work?” I tossed her the credit stick I’d gotten paid with and she smiled.”This will come in handy, Gretcha has been busy talking to the Serendipity government office over seeing all of the settlement deeds,  
homesteaders are being allowed to settle in three of the major island chains around the equatorial region, they want to speak to us concerning homesteaders rights and obligations, we will be able to receive a homesteaders land grant but we will need to show we can support ourselves by the third year.”

I nodded and brought Xila up to speed on what had happened.”Hal here says he wants to join me as an apprentice, I think with his skills we can apply for at least class two bounties from now on, that will make our income go up a bit,what sort of idea did you have in mind to help support us on Serendipity love?” Xila’s face turned bright red. That had been the first time I called her love in front of anyone,she just started giggling I hadn’t known an empath could be so bashful. When she finally was able to speak again she hauled me to the galley, Hal followed and she had us sit.”I’ve been looking over the local surroundings and Serendipity is a paradise,the places major export looks like it’s going to be red pearls, exotic woods and a local root that is used in alcohol production, I thought we could build a pub,and maybe brew our own stuff, I’m pretty sure the locals will be all over us pretty quick.”

*Looks like there’s some vicious water creatures in paradise,that thing sure doesn’t look like its a plant eater.* Gretcha had put up some pictures of the water based monsters living in the waters of Serendipity.*Those things are listed as wildlife bounties by the local government Jake,maybe you could set up a hunting business as well,I’m sure big game hunters would pay a small fortune to hunt monsters like that.* I looked at the thing it was some kind of ferocious twelve armed squid,that had a hard shell and a serrated tearing beak.The survey biologists had named them Nautaloids.

There were three other critters that lived in the waters of Serendipity that would send shivers down the spines of the average person,all of them were meat eaters. I jumped us to Serendipity later that afternoon and found out the local government were pretty snobbish when it came to the type of people they wanted to give land grants to. The space station in orbit was the current home to the Serendipity government, we spent the next 6 hours just trying to get through the line to speak to the deputy in charge of immigration that esteemed fellow was an asshole of the highest order,finally I got aggravated and demanded to see the chief planetary officer. That red tape took another two days to sort,but it looked like in the end it had been the right decision to make,we discussed our ideas and Galen Vash approved our grant.


	6. Homesteaders

Xila pointed out the island chain she wanted to investigate and I set the Odyssey down on a smooth landing area just off the beach. *Locals are hostile boss?* I grinned,*Don’t think there are any land based predators to worry about so you can relax.* The armor retracted as we walked into the thick tropical jungle,we found a newly cut path that led to a cleared area,when we got there we were met by several folks working on doing the clearing. I walked up and started to talk to the workers.”We were told at the station we could look for a suitable homestead lot in this area, is there someone here we can speak to about that?” I was pointed to a large tent,and nodded my thanks to the workers.

Hal started sneezing not long after we touched down,I looked over and the big Tauran's eyes were watering.”I must be allergic to something down here,feels like my eyes are ready to pop out of my head.” I laughed but he looked miserable.I knocked on the door and an echidnian opened it.”Yes can I help you?” I explained that we were homesteaders looking for the lot assignments officer. He told us he was the assignment officer and to come in and take a look at the homesteaders lot map so we could choose our location, we spent half an hour looking at lot sites, then Xila pointed to a large lot located on the coast right about where we had set down.

“What about this large lot here?” The officer glanced over and told her those large coastal lots were being put aside for eventual tourist destinations and were suitable for businesses that catered to the tourist trade or for sea based industry.”Well I am planning on building a pub catering to the seaside tourists that certainly would qualify for one of those lots wouldn’t it?” She went on to explain her ideas for the pub and her brewery idea,meanwhile I sat and started sketching out my plan for the dock and lodge I planned to set up to attract offworld tourists interested in hunting big game and fishing here on Serendipity. Our ideas were approved and we obtained our site deed for the property.

*Looks like we’ll be calling Serendipity home from now on Gretcha, first thing Hal and I will be doing is getting an actual landing pad put in so you’ll have the things you’ll need to recharge,it won’t be fancy, but it’ll be better then landing on uneven ground like we had to do today.* *I’d be grateful, I’ve been scanning the local area, and it seems to be alive with numerous life signs, it started to worry me,I don’t like sitting here while things are watching me from the surrounding jungle.* I laughed and assured her we were on our way back.*Seems she’s a worry wort boss are you sure we can’t just sell her at the next port and get a ship that doesn’t talk back all the time?*

I’d gotten used to the bickering in my head on occasion, but sometimes the armor just wanted to tease Gretcha into a fight.*Listen both of you, I have a lot of work to do starting tomorrow, so you can both zip it right now!* We’d obtained a tent from the supply warehouse and started setting up as soon as we got back to Gretcha.”Looks like we could put the landing pad over here,we’ll need to cut back all those trees and remove the stumps but the wood can be saved for processing in town at the sawmill we saw,looks like some pretty nice hardwood growth on the property, I’ll get started on that in the morning you should really go into town and see about the power generator we’ll need to allow the ship to recharge.” I nodded at him as we headed back into the ship to have some dinner. Xila was going through the local database looking at the prefab buildings we had to choose from.”Find anything worth looking at?” She smiled and pointed to the screen.”Gretcha’s been helping me to locate the right type of building and I think this is just what we were looking for, It’s three stories high 30 meters on a side,and 40 meters high. I figure we can use the roof space as a garden plot,and add more planting area on the far side of the land where we discussed putting the road into town at,sound good?” I looked at the projection she had overlaid on our plot allotment and grinned.

“So first level will be my pub,second level will be the brewery and top floor will be living area, I figure one wind power generator and a solar array should take care of the power needs for the place,but I don’t think that will be enough power to let Gretcha recharge.” “I’m going to see about getting a fusion generator in town tomorrow,I can ask about the wind power generator and the solar array while I’m there,anything else?” Xila’s eyes lit up,and I groaned it felt like my savings were about to take a serious hit. “Well we’ll need to get a well sunk for water,you should talk to the well diggers and find out when they can come put the well in,we’ll need a pump to supply water to the house and wherever else we decide to lay pipe to, I figure we’ll need at least three lines to start with, one for the house supply, one for the garden plot over by the road,and one for your dock.”

“Sounds good babe,anything else I should look into while I’m there?” Xila was blushing, she was still getting used to me using cute words like babe and love, I got the feeling empaths took that shit seriously. “I’m going to see what kind of appliances I can source locally but from the brief look I had I only saw standard house type appliances,they aren’t really setting up for any type of big business here yet,though the baker we ran into coming back suggested I contact a company on New Caladonia it’s only one star away from here and has the heavy appliances I’ll need for the pub and brewery.” We got some dinner and sat up well into the evening, it was going to take a little getting used to living on a planet with a 30 hour day night cycle.

In the morning I set out early, Hal was already hard at it chopping down trees to clear the area for the landing platform.”Hey when your in town pick up a couple more axes,and maybe a two man saw,you should also talk to those guys running the sawmill and see about getting this stuff turned into usable materials.” I nodded and gave him a thumbs up as I headed down the tiny path through the jungle to the road into town. I stopped at the well diggers tent first and got told it would be nearly 2 weeks before a crew could get to us, I applied for the first listing they had and headed to the hardware shop in the town center,bought two axes and a huge two man saw and paid to have them delivered to my site,next I headed over to the heavy equipment dealer and started looking at what she had on hand.

“Well I have some fusion generators but most of the wind and solar arrays have already been bought up, though from what you’ve told me your business is going to need a good bit more power the brewery vats alone will use a good bit of that not counting general use for the rest of the property it might seem like a large expense,but my suggestion is to forego the solar array and wind generator and just invest in a 500 gigajule fusion generator I have them in stock for large business set ups just like yours.” I looked at the cost of the huge generator, but from what the sales woman had said Xila had been well under our power requirements in her figures. I debated the cost but finally was convinced into buying it.”Oh hey while I’m ringing the sale up here I happen to know of a food and drink equipment warehouse on New Caladonia, for those brewing vats you're gonna need you folks thinking about selling to the markets being set up here In town? Heard there’s at least three bars being set up,those folks are going to want to source local hooch when they get rolling.” “You have names for the bar folks?” My question got me three names to contact in town,I added them to my to do list and set up delivery of the generator for the next day.

I made it through the rest of my to do list and made it back just before midmorning. Hal was swearing at one of the stumps he was trying to extract and I watched as violence ensued, his rage finally got the better of him and the big tauran simply knelt down and ripped the damn stump out of the ground,hurling it into the surrounding jungle with a loud shout of anger as I walked up.”Where the hells have you been!” His voice sounded highly agitated as he started my direction.”It took me a lot longer to do what I had to do then expected but I got everything done,let me pop in real quick and tell Xila what’s up,then I’ll get out here and give you a hand here,the new axes and saw should be here in a bit,why don’t you take a break and we’ll both grab something to drink .”

Hal growled something under his breath but I could see he was already starting to relax. “Alright,guess we could do that, it hasn’t been easy these damned trees have roots down to hell It seems,and the wood is damned hard to cut, I have a new respect for the term hardwood now,were you able to get the fusion generator we talked about?” I started explaining my morning as we made our way back to the ship. Suddenly I was encased in armor, a large lithe six legged creature was barreling towards me jaws wide, the thing looked like some kind of canine, nothing had been said in the planetary guide about any terrestrial predators but this thing didn’t look like an herbivore to me.I didn’t have any of my weapons with me, I prepared to go hand to hand with a 600 pound critter, and heard the big tauran beside me let out a fierce shout, I turned my head just far enough to see him raise the ax over his head and charge the oncoming monster. They came together with a violent slam, Hal’s ax came down on the canine things skull I heard a crunch  
as Hal flexed his huge muscles and clove the things head in, it dropped to the ground at his feet and I saw Hal’s grin. I helped Hal drag the carcass back to the tent we had set up,then went inside to tell Xila about my mornings adventures and take a break.

“I didn’t think about the power requirements for the brewery,damn sorry don’t know where my brains been lately.” I leaned in and kissed her.”Likely been on thinking other thoughts I imagine.”My comment made her smack me.”Now you stop it, you know damned well if you start broadcasting that kind of...of shit now you’ve got me feeling horny! Get out of here before I lose control of myself and we waste sometime being bad!” I started laughing and Hal let out a chuckle as Xila pushed us both towards the entry ramp. We were still laughing when I spotted A hovercycle coming through the trees.”Looks like the delivery we were waiting on,lets head over and get that stuff, I think I’ll ask the delivery person if they know anything about our unfriendly visitor over there.” Hal nodded as we walked over to meet the delivery person, when the driver cleared the trees and drove into the clearing Hal suddenly stopped dead in his tracks I glanced over and he had this sort of stunned look on his face. As the driver approached I started to piece together why,the tauran was a milky white colored female, I turned my head to see my friends reaction and watched him make his approach.

He must have been speaking in an obscure dialect when he spoke to her, because my old translator microbes couldn’t translate what he said. She got off the big hovercycle and started to unload the stuff I had ordered,her face grew red as he continued talking to her, I got the impression some of the stuff coming out of Hals mouth was anything but gentlemanly. “So hey apprentice yoohoo, you in there,lets get this stuff put away huh.” Hal came back to reality but something told me him and the delivery woman had just had a very interesting conversation,he leaned in and kissed her hand,she turned nearly scarlet and quickly retreated from the camp site.”You feel like filling me in on what just happened?” He growled and glared at me.”None of your business lets get this stuff in the tent.”

I laughed and picked up the huge two man saw, as he carried the axes into the tent.”I’m not trying to put my nose in your business man, but the lady seemed a little flustered when she left.” The big tauran sighed.”All I did was ask if she was single, haven’t seen many tauran's offworld so she surprised me, she said she was and we made plans to meet later this evening, it’s been ages since I even spent time with a female, uh listen I’m not usually this tense, but you got any advice on what I might talk about,you seem to be doing ok with the Nylith girl?” ”Xila and I have known each other a good few years, you might ask her what she likes to do,just as a starter.” He seemed lost in thought the rest of the morning as we finished clearing the area for Gretcha’s new landing pad.

By midday it was way to warm to work outside, the temp was up around 40 C when we gave up on starting the clearing for the house.”Lets get cleaned up, and we’ll call it a day for today,so any plans on where your gonna take that gal later?” Xila’s ears pricked up.”What gal?” I looked over at Hal and explained.”Seems the delivery gal that came out to deliver our hardware stuff is a female tauran,Mr smooth over there has a date tonight.”Hals ear reddened.”Yeah..uh anyway I’m gonna get cleaned up later.” He retreated to take a shower and both Xila and I smiled at each other,her move to enfold me in her arms,made me pause.”You still feeling frisky then?” She grinned that grin at me and we headed to our cabin.*You two better not break anything the last time you went crazy I ended up with strange stains over half of my decks.*

We spent the heat of the day making love in our cabin, Xila sighed after our last encounter and rolled over in bed.”You know I really feel like were ready Jake,can we get married next week?” I pulled her into my arms and kissed her.” “Alright you find a priest,and we’ll get this done and dusted.She squealed and jumped out of bed,women seem to love fancy events if I had my way we would have gotten a local justice back on 359 to marry us,but something told me Nylith girls didn’t go in for shit like that. We finally got dressed and headed out to grab something to eat, I looked into the fridge and what I saw disgusted me.”All we have left is carbo paste, I don’t feel like eating that crap lets head into town and see if anyones set up any restaurants yet,or maybe we could just buy some fresh food and come back and cook it ourselves.” Xila smiled and took my hand,we watched Hal grooming himself and smiled as we went by.”You two heading into town?” His question brought another grin to Xila’s face.”Why...you feeling anxious about something?” He glared at her then I saw him swallow.”Not really feeling that,but well I couldn’t think of anything to do,either of you got an idea,this place isn’t really settled yet,it’s not like back home.” “You could always pick your new lady friend up and meet us were going to find out if there’s a restaurant in town yet, or get the stuff to come back and cook something ourselves.”

He nodded and followed us out.”Oh Olga said the grimjaws are solitary hunters,she found out about them from some locals living on the other side of the island,from what she understands the first survey team that came through here did it during the winter months when the beasts are usually dormant in their lairs, local wildlife officers have been getting calls now that spring is here,to come and deal with the nasty predators,we might be able to drum up some easy business if we talked to the wildlife guy in town,at least we could find out if there’s a bounty on the damned things.” I agreed with him as we traveled into town,the place started jumping as the afternoon wore on we found a quaint little restaurant on the town square that was just what we had been looking for.

Hal went to get his new lady friend and we waited for their return sitting under a large tree in the towns central park,other couples started strolling through the park as evening approached and the heat of the day lessened.We met up with Hal and Olga then all of us headed for the local restaurant,when we got there the place was already jumping. Olga laughed at something Hal mumbled then leaned in and kissed him. I saw the color in his cheeks as he started stammering.“Uh...well...so eh sure was hot today!” I chuckled but Olga wasn’t done upsetting Hal she put her arm in his then softly whispered something in his fast reddening ear. Hal looked like a herbivore in the hovercar lights at night,he had a stunned expression on his face as we got seated at the table. 

“So Olga Hal tells me you told him about the big canine predators that are on the island,do you know if there's someone we can talk to about maybe using our skills to get rid of the pests?” She nodded and gave me directions to the local wildlife office,the damned things had already killed 5 settlers and didn’t seem to have any fear of humanoids.”Yeah kind of saw that earlier today, they seem pretty vicious thanks for the info,Hal and I are bounty hunters so this is right up our street, I’ll get in touch with the person you recommended and see if maybe we can come to an agreement on a bounty for the things.”We spent the rest of the evening eating and enjoying ourselves,Olga and Xila started talking about things they enjoyed doing and I pulled Hal aside.”So you feeling anymore at ease around her yet,you look like what she whispered to you earlier might have been kind of intimate.” He swallowed then pulled me in closer.”She said uh...she well she wants my body!” I snickered but he looked like he was really nervous.”So go get her what are you waiting for an engraved invitation go sweep her off her feet and get to loving already.” His face turned bright red and he whispered.”I’m a virgin,ain’t got a clue what the hell do I do?”


	7. The pirates

Two months later, Hal and I were contacted by the Serendipity government about shipping lanes encountering pirate raiders coming from the surrounding systems, we’d been on a sabbatical from the guild during the time we had been getting our place on Serendipity up and running,now we were back in business. I contacted the local government office and got the files on the raiders. They had been preying on merchant ships coming into Serendipity from the surrounding systems,especially along the routes from New Caledonia and Polaria Majoris. They were the major trading routes into Serendipity.

“So what does it look like boss?” I nodded at Hal and tossed him one of the files. He opened it and began reading as I finished the first file there were a total of 23 incidents various scum had been involved but there weren’t many details, it was beginning to look like Hal and I would need to track down our prey and then run them to ground,before we took out the trash.”These pirate raiders even attacked a cruise liner that was setting up to run between here and New Caledonia, seems the cruise lines onboard cameras were able to get some pictures of some of the scum were after,here there you can see five of them as they were assaulting the main lounge of the liner.”

He picked up the photo and made a deep throated growl.”The file says the damned bastards killed the security guards and spaced half of the liners crew, from what I read they’ve been randomly hitting merchant shipping and selling the stuff at the Palindor asteroid station, in the New Caledonia sector, that place is bad news. When I was working for the Mootarus government I was sent there on a mission,it’s a pirate hive,and one of the biggest fencing operations in nine sectors. I’m willing to bet our pirates are running most of their operations out of that place.” I nodded and pulled up the charts on the Palindor asteroid,what Gretcha projected looked like a damned fortress.*Looks like they are protected by multiple missile batteries,and at least 20 hyper pulse cannons from the diagram I was able to pull up,the asteroid has its own repair bays and 6 huge flight hangars,back when it was first built the Crixian’s had fighters stationed in those hangars*

I stared at the diagram and put my finger to my lip.”Well if the pirates who later took the place over after the Crixian’s were annihilated by the Rilat consortium have kept those hangars in operation we may have to catch the pirates while their out hunting,I don’t see much call to go sneaking in there and maybe getting our asses shot off by all that fire power.I heard a mental sigh and Gretcha made a rude noise.*If you ask me,we should fly in,and let me unload my full arsenal on that damned place!* “Seriously, even with your firepower that's one hell of a place to take out with a strike like that,if they deploy fighters we’ll be in deep shit.”

*So, what if we didn’t go in alone?* I scratched my head and sat back in my chair.”If we could get even just a couple more ships to back us up we might have a chance to shut that whole operation down permanently, though I don’t know anybody that owes me any favors,what did you have in mind?” *You let me handle that end of things I need to make a call.* Gretcha’s presence in my mind faded nearly away,I could feel a surge as she lit up the hypertrans com system and started pulsing out some kind of message.”Well if were going to launch a strike against the place,we should contact the governments that have been affected by these intergalactic thieves.” I agreed with Hal,and we got to work planning our target for the strike against the station.”I say we should launch a full barrage into those hangars,it will certainly put a dent into whatever kind of fighters they might be able to deploy against us,looks like the upper pylons missile batteries are fire and forget tracking missiles that’s high class grade A military hardware Jake.” I nodded and stared at the pylons.”Those might be a problem,if they fire that shit at us I don’t know if we could take a full on hit and survive.That’s a lot of firepower for the shields to handle.” 

Just about that time Olga peeked her head around the corner of the boarding ramp and smiled at Hal, he grinned like a fool and stood up.”Uh I promised Olga I’d cook dinner tonight.” I glanced over at Olga and gave her a thumbs up,she blushed and quietly came in and sat down.”So has he gotten over being a virgin yet?” Her face turned bright red and I heard a pan hit the floor in the galley. I could hear Hal in there cussing to himself about nosy fucking people up in his private business.Olga leaned in and whispered.”I think I have finally gotten him trained,well at least enough to satisfy me,he knows how I like it.” I started to laugh,she’d just come right out and told me that crazy shit.”Taurans aren’t usually prudes when it comes to sex,I see you and the Nylith girl love to fuck all the time,he just had a well very religious upbringing and I’m having to break him of his old habits.” I grinned Xila’s face turned red but she high fived the big Tauran girl and the two of them went into our cabin.

I got up and padded over to our door.”So did he get freaky when you started playing those erotic tunes from Hessia 3?” I heard Olga start giggling.”I don’t know about him but the erotic harmonics in that shit had my juices flowing like it was time to find my man and put the bomb in the barrel till my head exploded.” Xila started laughing.I quickly stepped away from the door hastily, when two women started talking about sex with their boyfriends things were gonna get out of hand quick.* I got a reply from my message, I talked to Kalin him and his partner are out in the Galter nebula right now but he’ll be here in 35 hours,we’ll be able to go after those damned pirates any time after that.* I grinned.

“Whose this Kalin anyway?” My question painted my brain with a red blush.*Uh...he and I...well that’s none of your business!* Her embarrassment startled me.”Hey you sneak in when Xila and I are getting it on all the time,what’s so special about whoever this Kalin dude is?” I could feel Gretcha pulling away,until I put her on the spot.”For fucks sake Gretcha what the hell is wrong with you?” I could feel her trying to get up enough courage together to explain.*Ok...he and I...well Let’s just say the last time we were together it was magical.* I started to laugh.”Girl you have got to be kidding me Kalin is a ship?” I felt that red haze go across my brain again.”Oh this is rich,what, did you two get your freak on or something?” Gretcha started whistling.

“Holy shit you did,so is he hot for your frame?” I felt her jolt.*Shut up...he..just mind your own business!” I sat back in my chair and just started grinning.”I guess I’m going to have to ask him whenever he shows up then,seems like my ship has the horny hots for some ragged ass ship out in the outback ass of nowhere.” I could feel her resistance crumble.*Alright you savage,I...I find him highly attractive,when he’s near me,I can’t control my urges.he...he makes me crazy Jake,there is that what you wanted to hear!* “Hey relax,I was only kidding do you really have feelings for him like that?” I felt her sigh through the biolink.*I get to see and feel those around me enjoying themselves with their mates and my creators made us self replicating,so if you have to rip open everything and force me to explain it, I feel as close to him when he’s near me as you and Xila do,does that make me any different then any other biological lifeform?!*

I nodded slowly.”Gretcha you can love whoever you want to love,I just wanted to let you know if your in love with him I’m sure your going to want to spend some time with him won’t you?” I heard her sob.*You aren’t trying to tease me are you?* “No honest girl,if you’re in love I just want to make sure you’re going to be alright,hey all of us need to feel special,why should you be any different then Xila or Olga they let themselves go,and just enjoy themselves you heard what they were talking about a few minutes ago,I don’t think your feelings are any different then the rest of the females here.”

That was the first time I actually felt like maybe Gretcha was a whole lot more then just the ship I flew around the galaxy in.”You know we get crazy all the time every time I jump us somewhere those feelings of pleasure rip my brain up,but it feels great not to have to experience jump sickness or have to take any sort of drug to allow me to pilot the ship I fly,now tell me more about how Kalin makes you feel,and be honest were all adults here.” She started to explain her feelings for the male ship,how she felt when he would burst out of null space and swoop into her close proximity how when he caressed her outer hull softly with the gravity field of his shield grid,what he made her feel as they soared together diving and twisting through space at nearly light velocity.

“Damn Gretcha sounds like you really like getting your freak on when he shows up,so when he does,just drop us planet side and we’ll let you two be alone.” I could feel something akin to desire surge through the biolink.* Uh well if we get the chance to..uh be alone,I’ll take you up on that offer!* I could feel a bright joy filling her as we talked.”Hey maybe you could ask him if he would like to come around more often hell if he makes you feel this good,I bet you two could make beautiful music together if he showed up on a regular basis.”

The next morning we jumped up to atmosphere,and got ready to head into combat,right on time a ship burst out of null space and cruised into orbit with us.I gazed in amazement at the lumbering giant.”Gretcha you didn’t tell me your boyfriend was a god damned battleship just how big is he anyway? My mouth hung open.”Are those torpedo launchers he’s got slung under his wings?Holy shit girl, he has more firepower then a Berelian destroyer!” I heard her giggle.*Uh incoming call from Kalins pilot she wants to talk to you.* “Sure put her through.” I waited for a couple seconds then a neon pink skinned four breasted hottie from Denero 7 popped up on my screen.”So what you fella’s up to? Kalin says you two are bounty hunters and needed our help in busting up a nasty old pirate ring,he said we should stop by so he could say hi to his babe Gretcha,been a while since they got together,last time they said they wouldn’t be apart so long but well between one thing and another it’s been over ten solar years since we met up.”

Kalin swooped in close and I felt the jolt of the two gravity fields sliding together,then felt the heat rise in the cabin.”Hey you gonna be ok? We have a bounty to go collect.” She sighed but I could feel every sensor was fixed on the big ship cruising next to us.”Damn girl chill out, when this is over you’ll get to be with him,calm your jets.” Over the com channel I could hear Kalin’s pilot saying words to the same effect to him.”So you two boys want me to light up the missile pylons while you two blast those hangar bays right?” “Yeah when we light the hangars up you slam them with torpedo’s and whatever else you can toss their way,maybe between us we’ll clean up this ring and get us some nice paydays.” I work as a mercenary for hire,so your talking my language what’s my cut?” I scratched my head,I hadn’t thought to much about it but we certainly needed to give it some thought.

“What say we split that bounty you boys are going to collect three ways sound fair?” I looked at Hal and he nodded.”Sounds good to my partner,so hell yeah lets go light those bastards up!” We made the jump to the Palindor system and came in hot on the asteroid.*Shields are up,loading a full barrage of lamprey missiles,hyper pulse cannons are hot,let’s light them up Jake!* I dialed up an old earth tune called highway to the danger zone and targeted the lamprey tubes right at the glowing red cross hairs floating in my vision. 20 burning flames of bright light shot away screaming towards the station, I felt the thump of the recoil as Hal lit up the hyper pulse cannons and laid waste to the asteroids hangars with deadly efficiency the ratcheting grind of the guns sounded like a thunderstorm going off in the ship.

Suddenly space lit up around us, as Kalin unleashed a firestorm of death and destruction down on those missile pylons. I watched as the explosions lit up space like a fireworks display,”Hot damn now that’s what I call a party!” I heard kalins pilot howling through the coms.’Bringing us around for another pass,Gretcha get those tubes reloaded,were going to blast that defense ring and blow this damned thing to bits!*Roger that,reloading,twenty seconds till we can fire again Jake!* Hal was still pounding away,I could feel Gretcha’s heavy hyper pulse cannons vibrating through the hull as he tore the asteroid to pieces with relentless firepower,an eruption of violent energy spewed into space from where the concentrated firepower had breached the asteroids core,I targeted the center of that eruption and fired the second barrage of screaming hellfire right into the breach.

An eye hurting flash of incandescent light filled my vision washing over my senses like a raging tide,the asteroid exploded into a shower of chunks and pieces flying away at unbelievable speeds.”Serves you bastards right, tell the devil I said hello when you get there! I hollered.When the light faded space was littered with floating debris,and scattered materials,four pirate ships cold and lifeless were drifting shattered hulks still softly burning as they vented atmosphere into the void.”Gretcha run a full sensor sweep is there anything alive over there?” I heard her systems working then she sighed in my head.*All clear Jake looks like we caught the bastards with their pants down,from the hull tags it looks like we got the ships the pirates were using to attack all of those merchants and the cruise liner with, one second I am receiving an incoming distress call from a small shuttle,should I put it through?*

“Yeah let’s hear what whoever it is has to say.” *Routing the call.* “This is Palindor central control operator Bithkin durge I have an emergency the station has fallen under surprise attack,mayday,mayday mayday!” “Gretcha locate the mayday and prepare to lock on to the shuttle with a grapple line.” *Roger, target is at coordinates 1254.9 by 582.7 to port.* “let’s head over and introduce ourselves to that disgusting pile of humanoid garbage.” We cruised up on the damaged shuttle I could see where the thing had been lit up with a shot from one of the hyper pulse cannons Hal had been firing.

“This is the Odyssey,under galactic code of justice law 7 dash 3 I place you under detainment, you will be transported to the nearest guild station and held there until sentencing is passed on you.” “Dammit that there is gods be damned bounty hunters I told those dumb sons of bitches if they kept messing with them merchants so close to Serendipity they were going to bring the hammer down on us,son of a bitch!” I heard another voice start shouting about being innocent and just closed the channel.”Tell those scumbags we’ll be carting them over to 359 for processing,and to have a nice day.”

Kalin swooped in close to Gretcha and I could feel the grind of their two gravity fields sliding together again.”So you feeling as charged up as I do after that ass whipping we just laid down on those scum?” I could hear her laughing.*Kalin says he enjoyed himself immensely but he wants to just head back and deliver our bounties so his pilot can get paid.* “Tell him setting coordinates for station 359,preparing to jump!” We blasted into null space and cruised along for the next 41 hours till we hit the jump point at 359. “Hey Hal did you ever get something to give Olga,man if you forget her birthday shes going to be pissed!” The big tauran came up from the galley and gave me the finger.”Shut the hell up,I know her birthday is day after tomorrow and I got just the thing for her already.”

“So what did you get her anyway?” He reached into his long jacket pocket and pulled out a new plasma pistol.”Damn you two must be getting serious what anniversary does that fall under?” He shot me the bird again and stuck out his tongue.”Your brain must be leaking I’m giving her the damned thing because I get worried when shes running deliveries with all the damned grimjaws skulking around the island still,man your so stupid sometimes!” “I’m stupid who was the virgin up until three months ago,shit if anyone's stupid it’s you.*Coming up on transition.* Gretcha broke in,I could feel the excitement running through her circuits.”You gonna be ok with that big boy up here making googly eyes at your tail end as we head down to the surface?” 

*Are you trying to cause me to crash? I believe the proper term is kiss my ass!*I told Hal what she said and started laughing.*Jake uh...you don’t think my tail is to long do you?* “Girl if your worrying about what you look like now what are you going to do when your up here all alone with him?” I felt a shudder run through the deck.*It’s been a long time since...well since I flew free and on my own,I’m kind of worried I don’t really remember all the mating patterns.* My mouth dropped open.”What the hell Gretcha! Never mind I don’t want to know!” Hal was sitting in the copilots seat and gave me the raised eyebrows.”She says she can’t remember how sex goes.” He started to giggle,then it became a full blown belly laugh.”Guess if you don’t use it you lose it huh.” Gretcha blew him a raspberry over the com.


	8. Celebrities

We dropped off our prisoners and collected our bounty from station 359,even after the cut we all walked away with nearly 70.000 credits apiece.Hal was whistling some Mootaurus tune as we strolled back to the docking ring to give Kalin’s pilot her cut of the take.”What’s got you so chipper?” My question stopped his whistling.”I think I’m going to get married to Olga when we get back, with this sort of cash I can buy a small plot and put a house on it near town.” “You must have gotten brain damage big guy,you sure you want to get tied down to her just like that?” He glared at me.”I’ve been a soldier since I was born,and there’s one thing I’ve learned in all that time,if you want something you grab it with both hands and take it.””Huh who knew you were such a romantic,so have you said anything to her about it?” He looked like I’d punched him in the gut.

“Uh..she said yes...we, well it sort of happened just before we took off, I’m still pretty new at this relationship stuff,you think I’m doing the right thing!?” I started laughing.”It’s to late to think about escaping now,shes got you right where she wants you and the noose is tightening around your neck man.” “Look whose talking,Xila has you wrapped around her little finger pretty well from what I can see,so uh, Olga wants to do this marriage thing as soon as we get back.” “Man Xila and I have a damned good relationship and it’s been over years it’s been developing,you just met the damned girl three months ago,what the hell do you really know about her?” “Shes pregnant!” 

I about lost my shit right there.”Aw come on you guys didn’t use any protection, when you went and did the fandango?” He looked like I’d just kicked him in the balls.”Taurans uh, we get very physical when the mating urges take over,she and I,well her hormonal levels had been peaking,those pheromones overcame me,the next thing we both knew we were standing in the shattered remains of her bedroom standing there naked and the sun was coming up.” “You were gone all night,are you telling me you and...for shits sake,you two went at it all night?” I could see he was feeling really uncomfortable. “Well, she says that’s normal,can we just talk about something else?”

I shook my head and we continued on in silence.*Did you hear what Hal just told me?* I heard Gretcha sigh,and the armor symbiote started laughing.*You two are about as helpful as a pile of Yvic turds,come on he looks like he’s depressed again,anyone got any advice at all?* Neither of them said a word.*I have a love sick ship and a smart ass suit of armor,you would think between the two of them they might be able to give me some advice!* *Jake the best advice I can give you is to but out.* *What’s up with you anyway Gretcha?* I could feel a shiver flicker through our biolink.*Kalin..he..he’s sending me harmonic pulses,he’s been at it since we docked.* *What the hell are Harmonic pulses?* *It’s foreplay, he’s been gathering energy since we came out of the jump.* I felt another long shiver run down the biolink,and Gretcha let out a long moan of intense pleasure in my head.”Ah for shits sake, one’s having ecstasy,and the others wandering around like he’s been hit upside the head with a stupid stick.”

I buzzed for entrance at Kalins docking port entrance,the big ship wasn’t even able to berth at a docking bay he was so big.When the door cycled open the cute neon pink Deneran came strolling out the docking tube to meet us. As she got closer I noticed she was stark ass naked. “My word,now ain’t that a sight,what you two boys gawking at.” I closed my mouth and handed her the 70K credit stick.”Much obliged,I like doing business with people who pay for what they get,now Kalin says he’s ah, how should I put this politely,he says his urges are hitting peak,seems he and Gretcha have been getting crazy ever since we docked,that sexy ship of yours sure knows how to turn him into jelly,you understand what I’m getting at?”

I heard another mental moan rip through my head and nodded.”Uh yeah about that,we need to get back to Serendipity,then I promised Gretcha she could take whatever time she needed to,uh do whatever the hell two biomechanoid starships do.” I got back to the docking bay with Hal in tow and my mouth dropped open,Gretcha’s outer hull was covered in glowing purple swirls and bright neon blue dots.*Uh what the hells up with the bright colors and glowy bits?* * A girl has to look good for her suitor.* I just put my hand to my head,and dragged the other love sick dummy into the docking ramp, then sat him down in the galley.*Gretcha get ready to jump,were heading home then you can...do whatever the hell you biomechanoids do.* I don’t think she’d ever jumped that fast in all the time we’d been together,I could feel ripples of intensity zipping through her circuits.

*Coming up on transition!* It sounded to me like she was barely in control of herself as we burst out of the jump point and right into a media circus when we landed at the small pad next to my new home.Media people were swarming the place,from all over the sector.I spotted Galan Vash the newly elected planetary governor being followed by his entourage heading our way,outside the place was swarming with locals and various other official looking types right in the middle of it all was Xila and some tall white robed Nylith.I slammed my fist into the flight control and stared at the circus outside.”Ok what the hells going on here!?” My outburst was answered by Gretcha.*Well it might have something to do with the recording I sent to Galan Vashs office, after we blew that nest of pirates to hell.* 

“For shits sake,the place is crawling out there, just what did you send them anyway?” I heard a soft moan in my brain and she came back.*I’ll play the recording.* I watched the whole thing play out on the view screen. The guns firing, the brutal explosion, everything recorded in high fidelity video, had been sent to the planetary governors office.From there it must have been retransmitted to every person affected by the damned pirates in three sectors around Serendipity. I grabbed Hal and took a deep steadying breath.”Let’s go lover boy,seems we have some fans who want to meet us outside.” He seemed to shake off whatever doldrums he was in and stared out the docking ramp as it went down.”Holy shit...what’s all this about?” I told him about what Gretcha had done as we got swarmed by the media people.

An hour later Hal and I were still fielding questions from the gathered media officials,we finally were able to get away only to be grabbed by Galan Vash and led up on to a hastily constructed platform stage that had been set up.”It is my great honor to proclaim Prince Hal Vellentor of Mootarus and citizen Jake Pendelton with these hero’s medals of valor!” The announcement sent a ripple of applause through the crowd gathered around us.I turned to Hal and he looked like he was trying to shrink into himself.”You’re a god damned prince!?” He nodded as we got a fancy medal pinned to our chests. My brain wanted to melt down right there, but my day wasn’t done taking a shit on me,Xila came walking forward and the white robed tall Nylith walked behind her.”So hero,the priest is here to marry us.”

The rest of the day turned into a nightmare,I got married,the gathered media thought that a local hero’s marriage was another great opportunity for them to broadcast my life all over known space,by the time we finally escaped and retreated into the house Olga had dragged Hal away to her place. I slammed the door on the annoying media people and turned to my new bride.”You think this shit is funny don’t you!?” She just grinned and started dragging me upstairs. “Now what are you up to?” She just grinned again as she opened our bedroom door.Several hours later I leaned over and nudged her.”You wanna tell me how you got the priest here, just when this media circus kicked off?” She giggled and shook her head no. 

*Jake I’m taking off now!* I could feel her energy surge as she ignited her engines and quickly blasted up out of atmosphere,I could feel the rush as she swept up to meet Kalin. Intense feelings rippled through our biolink,I felt her accelerate away from the big guy and lay back in bed to experience the chase,she wove her way through the asteroid belt,ducking and weaving trailed by a brilliant wash of purple energy,He followed spinning and swooping after her, she led him a merry chase across the entire system and tried to accelerate away from him a second time,the big brute put on a terrifying burst of speed and scooped her up into a tight embrace,I lost consciousness as they met,feelings of such intense pleasure shut my brain down. I’d been disconnected from her.

Several minutes later I woke up to Xila shaking me.”Uh babe, you can stop now, my head feels like I’ve been drinking challi since yesterday.” “You scared the living crap out of me,you were gone for the last ten minutes,you alright!?” I nodded and pulled her into my arms.”I’m thinking there are two very happy starships having some seriously good sex right now up there.” Xila started giggling.”Well we don’t do half bad ourselves,you feel like maybe,uh you know again?” I sighed as she started kissing me.”You’re not gonna let me rest even a little bit are you?” She reached into the nightstand next to our bed and brought out the stone.”Aw, for shits sake woman!” We spent the rest of the evening having hardcore,fast driving,mind blowing sex.I crept downstairs the next morning so sore, I could barely put my pants on. When we’d woken up Xila had started to explain just what I’d gotten myself into,turned out she’d been using a meditative trance all Nylith girls used before marriage,now that she was married she was no longer required to suppress her natural rhythms.As she explained I found out every three months I was going to be,well subjected to her nymphomaniac phase for about three days,I promised myself to get into better shape. Nylith women were just crazy, when they were allowed to let their hair down and just let it go.

When I stepped into the pub,I could hear someone in the main kitchen,curious I pushed open the door and Hal was hard at work making some breakfast sitting next to him on the counter was Olga,she had a huge grin plastered across her face and they were talking about getting married themselves today.”Brother just get it over with you punk,you didn’t think maybe being a prince might be just a little bit important to tell me?” He started laughing.”I renounced my rights a long time ago, unless my three older brothers all die somehow I won’t even be a blip to the government back there,and after all of that blackmail and dirty dealing that was said about me,I don’t think the people would want me back home anyway.”

Olga took that moment to run for the pubs bathroom.Hal and I both followed unsure about what had just happened until we both stopped outside the bathroom door.Inside we could both hear Olga being wretchedly sick.I turned to Hal and shook my head.”Man your in deep shit,that sounds like shes having morning sickness in there,you better put a ring on that finger and just call yourself lucky.” He nodded and we both retreated quickly, back into the kitchen. When we got back,Xila had come down and was looking like she was in a trance.”Hal you better do it soon,Olga is starting to feel like you don’t really want to take responsibility for what you did.” Hal’s mouth dropped open when my wife told him that.”That’s not true! I love her!” Olga pushed the door open and I could see tears in her eyes.”Then show me you mean that!” I swear the big guy just dropped what he was doing,stomped across the kitchen, picked her up and carried her away. Xila and I stood there just gawping, as he seated her on the big hovercycle and drove off.

Later that afternoon while we were setting up the pub for our first evening of official business Hal and Olga now happily wed reappeared. My mouth fell open when I spotted him drive up. A driver stepped out and came around to open the huge limousines gull wing door,Hal stepped out in some kind of princely get up and Olga looked like she was wearing the height of fashion from Mootarus.”What the hell happened to you two!?” Hal nodded to the guy who had opened the limo door and he got back in the big hovercar.”When Olga and I went to get married,I was informed that my government had contacted Galan Vash’s office, I was told my status back on the homeworld has gone through a drastic shift,it seems I have been tapped to become the new ambassador to the galactic parliament,they are sending an imperial yacht to come and retrieve me and my new bride.”

“Ok you better sit your ass down and explain!” They both came in and sat down.Olga showed Xila an absolutely stunning rock on the ring Hal had gotten her.”Ok spill it,what’s with the sudden change, I thought you were like third in line or something and the folks back home didn’t really want to know you still existed?” He nodded.”Well after what happened got back to the Premiers office, he decided the smear campaign that had been directed against me was certainly and absolutely false,he contacted my father and they got the paperwork started on my ambassadorial appointment to the galactic parliament,guess they want me to represent Mootarus in the political theater. I listened as Olga took the story over from there,she was excited,their marriage had made her an imperial princess, I just sat back in my chair and sighed. “So when do you two leave for Mootarus?” Hal grinned and reached for Olga’s hand.”The yacht should be here sometime the day after tomorrow.”

Just as we opened the door for business at 6 that evening, I heard a sultry sounding voice tell me she was back,followed by the sound of breaking thrusters being fired as Gretcha set down outside on her landing pad.*Well sounds like someone got her pipes cleaned for her.* I could feel Gretcha’s circuits vibrate.*You just mind your own business, Kalin promised he would come around more often, I already miss him.He said he has a job out in the Galter nebula, that needs taking care of still. Seems that when I called him, he demanded to come immediately and help us.* I sighed.*You know if you want to go visit every once in a while, I won’t tell you no,just ah, maybe next time you two decide to have an orgy like that,you well, let me down a bit easier.* I felt a wash of bashful embarrassment skitter across my brain.*Was I broadcasting that much?* *Girl, you nearly fried my brain!*

*I...I’m sorry...I uh...we..it’s uh.* I could tell emotions that hadn’t been stirred in a very long time were playing havoc with her.*Listen,it’s fine,you didn’t do anything wrong did you two get up to anything other then making love till you were both sated?* * We did go search for the closest gas giant together.* *What did you do that for?* *Well the baby will need a gas rich atmosphere to mature in until it’s ready to fly free on it’s own.* *Oh, wait just a second,you’re telling me your pregnant!?* *I’m just like every other biological,did you think I was some sort of neutered freak?!* I slapped a hand to my forehead and sat down in one of the lounge chairs in the pub. My combat partner was an alien prince,my new wife had just told me that every three months she was going to turn into a raving nymphomaniac for three days,and now my starship was telling me her and her boyfriend had gotten her pregnant.

I stepped to the bar and the new bartender Xila had hired asked me if he could get me anything.I sat down on a bar stool and told him to pour me a stiff quantum slinger and keep them coming till I couldn’t see straight anymore. Xila came down two hours later, and dragged me back upstairs.”You’re a mess,what’s gotten in to you?” “Where do I start,you tell me you turn into a sex crazed nymphomaniac,the fact my combat partner is some alien prince or that my ship is gone and gotten herself pregnant?” Xila started giggling.”Well get ready for another shock,Grev called he and his new wife are coming here,the council has assigned him to be the head of the new guild house they are getting ready to build here on Serendipity after someone found out about the dashing young bounty hunter flying in to blast some plundering pirates all to hell. 

I moaned and sat down on our bed.”Please tell me this is all a bad dream and I am going to wake up soon and my lifes not going to be upside down.” “Sorry, you’re married to a crazy Nylith woman,who every three months turns into a sex demanding nymphomaniac,your partner has found his princess,and they are flying away together tomorrow to start their new life and Gretcha just told me she might experience very wretched morning sickness over the next several weeks.” I stared at her.”Since when have you been able to actually hear what Gretcha says?” “Oh since we used the stone to bond with,why?” I laid down on the bed,and put a pillow over my head,sure in the knowledge my life was over.


End file.
